


The “How Not to Fall” List

by JediTempleTherapyBill



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Asexual Obi-Wan Kenobi, Asexual Rey (Star Wars), BAMF Rey, By It I mean the Prequels, Demiromantic Greysexual Kylo Ren (Star Wars), F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Goddamnit Anakin, Kylo and Rey Save the Prequels, Mix of Disney and Legends, Multi, Slow Burn, Time Travel, i don’t make the rules, look there are a lot of ace Jedi ok?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:55:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 64,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22456093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JediTempleTherapyBill/pseuds/JediTempleTherapyBill
Summary: Kylo blinked in surprise. “You did this. You sent me back.”Anakin didn’t reply to that. “I have a list,” he said instead. “Of things that went wrong. You change every item on it, and I’ll undo the distortion in the Force that’s keeping you here and send you back. If you fail, or if you make it worse, I will kill you and her and everything you have ever held dear. Do we have an understanding?”“Yes,” said Kylo, meeting his grandfather’s eyes steadily. “We have an understanding.”Or: Anakin takes advantage of an accident involving concussive blasts and Sith artifacts to send Kylo and Rey back to the start of the Clone Wars. Their mission? Change the timeline and stop him from Falling.Rather predictably, things go wrong.
Relationships: Also some - Relationship, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, If we do all the friendships we’ll be here all day so just accept that they’re all friends, Kylo Ren/Rey, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Happiness - Relationship, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Siri Tachi, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker, Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, but we all know the real ship is, is the main one
Comments: 271
Kudos: 566





	1. Chapter 1

“Incoming, Sandstorm,” said Finn’s voice over the comlink. “Twenty troopers, some sort of big battering ram-looking thing, and a mini AT-AT, headed for the compound door. Black Leader, can your squadron try to wipe a few of them out from above before I take Zephyr Team in on the Republic side?”

“Trying—to,” said Poe, sounding strained. “We’re taking fire, if you haven’t noticed, Agent Handsome.”

Rey ducked down a hallway, narrowly dodging a chunk of falling wall. Old Jedi outposts tended to have two things in common—amazing wildlife, and incredibly shoddy architecture. The adjoining Republic supply base wasn’t much better off, structurally, but at least it wasn’t made of mud bricks.

“Not my codename,” said Finn. “Sandstorm, Strike Team Zephyr and I are en route, ETA 4 minutes.”

“Make it five and I can clear your route,” said Poe. His voice crackled with static.

“Negative, Black Leader. Zephyr Team wants the forest cover. If you blow those vines, we’re sitting ducks.”

“Oh, really,” said Poe. “And by forest cover, you mean the thick jungle. As in the jungle that literally anyone could be hiding in, from the Knights of Ren to an Ewok brigade. Am I reading you right on that, Big Deal Leader?”

“Zephyr Leader,” Finn spluttered. “And who told you about the big deal thing?”

“BB-8,” said Poe. “How you doing down there, Dust Devil?” 

“Fine, so far. No sign of those troopers, though,” Rey answered.

“They’ve diverted to the Republic Side,” said Poe. “Jacket-looks-good-on-you Leader, your squad needs to head east to avoid them.”

“I think we should engage, Black Leader,” said Finn.

“Negative. Let em’ wear out the AT-AT on those doors first. If you make it around back and boot up the generator, you can engage the deadlocks and get those files while they’re still banging away on the front porch.”

“I’m going to guess that ram can deatomize the deadlock,” said Finn. 

“Do I need to be on your commline for this?” said Rey, gently nudging a jammed door open with the Force while trying not to disturb the surrounding walls. “You two are being very distracting.”

“Check your volume, Porg Queen,” said Poe. “General wants semi-open comms unless this turns into a stealth op. Something, something, improving group morale, every soldier matters, something. As long as your mic’s transmitting you’re in compliance, and I’ll ping your alert beacon if there’s an update on the sitrep.”

“Copy,” said Rey, and turned her receiver volume down until Finn and Poe were a low, bickering hum in her left ear. She’d feel it in the Force if they needed her.

The door gave way, revealing a large, round chamber with decently high ceilings and only a few unintentional skylights. Twelve identical doors, including the one Rey had come through, were spaced evenly around the wall. 

_I need to find the Jedi entrance to the Republic compound_ , she thought, and opened herself up to the Force.

It was strong, in this room, woven into every crack and cranny of the walls. Images washed over her, too fast to process effectively. Thousands of faces, of lives, all connected, living and dying in the space between a whisper and its echo. Luke had warned her about how it would feel to listen to places like this, although she hadn’t paid much attention to him. 

It didn’t really matter, anyway, because when she let the Force guide her it became all too clear that Luke and his power were nothing, here in this old place. She was a single grain of sand in this vast desert, borne endlessly by the great tidal dune waves, in thrall to the vast Will of the Force as every Jedi had been and every Jedi would remain—

_No_ , Rey thought, and grounded herself down through her feet, molding the Force to her in creeping tendrils. _I am myself. My mind is my own, and no one else’s. I need to find the Jedi passage to the Republic supply compound._

Luke had compared it to swimming, once. If you kicked out blindly, you would splutter and be pulled under, but once you got your bearings and managed to tread water, you could ride the waves safely. She hadn’t understood the metaphor at the time, and he’d beckoned her down to go wading by the pebbled shore. It had been a long time since Luke had been a desert-born boy, swimming for the first time, but he still remembered, and he fed the memory to her through their training bond as she tentatively stepped further in. It had been summer on one of Chandrila’s moons, and Leia had coaxed him out into the water, step by step, and then Han had shoved him in all the way and Chewie had needed to dive down and rescue him. She had made it until the water reached her neck, and she was shivering all over. It had taken another week to learn to paddle, and eventually Luke, who had always been a terrible swimmer, had given up and made Chewie teach her.

She held the memory close and fought her way upright against the onslaught of _emotion-memory-image-Force_ , stilling her breathing. _Don’t attack the water, pup. It hasn’t tried to rip your arms off yet._

She could sense the passageway she needed—third door from the left—and beyond it, Finn, glowing warm and soft like the candles he loved to light at twilight. In the sky, Poe and his squadron darted, almost too fast to follow, like the glisten of a knife’s edge, or a sudden lightning flash. Two trooper squadrons, with more inbound. Their presences in the Force were solid and measured, but difficult to grasp for long from this distance.

Without any warning, something brushed quickly against her in the Force. Its presence felt soft and sleek, gentle even, but her shields pounded _danger, danger, danger_ , and she came back to herself with a shudder, breathing hard.

She turned her comlink back up to full volume. “Black Leader, Zephyr Leader, this is Sandstorm. I have my route, but something else is down here.”

“Sandstorm, this is Black Leader. Define _something_.” Poe sounded more intrigued than concerned.

“Old, strong Force presence. Probably Dark, but not currently trying to kill me as far as I can tell, which is quite nice. Zephyr Leader, can your team handle the defense without backup while I go check it out? From what I can tell it’s somewhere down below this level, which puts it out of comm range.”

“Affirmative,” said Finn, who sounded a little out of breath. “It’s just like swatting flies on D’Qar.”

“Be careful, Sandstorm,” said Poe, unnecessarily. “If you’re not sure what that means, ask yourself, ‘What would the General do?’ And then—”

“Do the opposite,” Rey recited. “By the way, she knows that you say that behind her back.”

“Kriff,” said Poe. “Say farewell to my handsome face and shapely jawline, comrades. Next time you see me, I’ll be bantha fodder.”

“Stuff it,” said Rey companionably. “I’m going in. Sandstorm out for now.” She turned off her comm. There was no point in wasting perfectly good power packs if she was going to be out of range.

She took a moment to breathe and center herself before she lowered her shields and reached out again. _My mind is like fine sand,_ she thought, and sifted her awareness across the compound, as far as she could reach. _I am everywhere, but also I am here, and my awareness is open—_

The unfamiliar Force sense returned, but this time she was ready for it. It twined hesitantly around the edges of her consciousness, like a lothcat rubbing against an ankle, and in the space between two breaths she reached out and _held_ it.

A phantom jolt of electricity danced across her spine, but she held her concentration. _The sand of my mind has become glass, and the glass reflects a rope. The rope connects me to where I have to go_ , she thought, and opened her eyes, feeling a strong _tug_ towards the fourth door from the right. 

_Danger_ , her shields thrummed. She took a breath to calm them and organize her mind. Luke was an impassioned advocate of meditation as a default solution to life’s problems, probably because he was good enough at it that it actually helped. Rey, who had spent most of her life solving her problems by taking them apart with her hands or whacking them with her staff, had taken a long time to become even semi-proficient at meditating. It only worked as well as she wanted it to about half of the time, but it tended to be helpful in trying to keep control of her connection to the Force. 

She’d had to get much better at it very quickly once her bond with Kylo Ren had started to cause trouble. Luke hadn’t particularly cared whether she actually meditated at first, but when he realized that her mind was essentially an open book to his nephew, he had transformed overnight into the galaxy’s most aggressively enthusiastic meditation teacher. Rey didn’t sleep well the night before? She should meditate to recover her inner peace. Rey was having a hard time with lightsaber forms? She should meditate while visualizing them slowly, to train her mind before she attempted to tell her body what to do. Rey hated being stuck here, unable to help her friends when she knew they needed her? She should meditate to gain clarity and understand how far she had progressed already in such a short time. 

By the time she learned to appreciate meditation as a tool for self-control, Luke was already one with the Force. The days surrounding his death had created a veritable whirlpool of emotions that clouded her connection to the Force for nearly three weeks. She’d tried and failed to get rid of them in the more conventional ways suggested by her friends: hitting things (Finn), blowing up TIE fighters (Poe), hitting things while crying (Rose), tinkering with the ship mechanics (BB-8), and hitting things in the ship mechanics while crying, yelling angrily, and blowing up TIE fighters (Chewie). 

Eventually, she’d stumbled upon Leia meditating in the captain’s cabin, shortly after her most recent hitting-things-while-crying-and-yelling-and-blowing-up-TIES session with Chewie.

_“There’s no point in doing that.”_

_“Okay. Do you want to join me?”_

_“I mean it. He was always telling me that it fixed everything, but it never fixed anything, ever.”_

_“Did Luke say it fixed everything? I don’t think he believed that, himself.”_

_“That’s what he said. He told me all the time that meditating made everything better.”_

_“That’s not the same thing as fixing everything, Rey.”_

Leia had been right, of course. Leia generally was right. 

The fourth door from the right led to a tunnel, which ended in a dark, uneven, rough-hewn staircase. The staircase smelled like death and panic, so much that she nearly lost her balance on the first step.

Then she froze, for a different reason.

“Rey.”

“Kylo Ren.”

“Supreme Leader Ren, now,” he said, sardonically. “But I don’t expect you to grasp such niceties.”

She turned around, laying one hand on her lightsaber in an open warning. He was there, standing inside the tunnel, with his head bent a little forward to avoid the ceiling. Either he could sense her surroundings now, to some degree, or whatever trick of the Force had put him here had gone to the trouble of adjusting him to fit. “It’s been a while,” she observed neutrally, trying to hide the fact that she was breathing hard from her near-stumble.

“Let me guess,” he said, pacing forward until he stood at the edge of the first step. “You’re with your friends, invading that outpost I just got an alarm notification about.”

“That’s an easy assumption,” Rey pointed out. “Hardly any risk of being wrong. And if you are wrong, and I correct you, I’ve just given you a new attack location.”

He shrugged, barely. “Worth a shot.” His face stayed serious, his eyes fixed on hers. 

She squinted. His clothes were black, as usual, which made guessing difficult. Still, he was twitching uncomfortably in them, which meant they probably were fairly formal. His cloak was heavy, she noticed, possibly made of synthetic heat-fibers, and his breath curled in front of his face in a visible mist. Somewhere cold, then. She closed her eyes, reached out with the Force, and opened them again to find herself in a well-lit white hallway with few other identifying features. “You’re on Mygeeto, fundraising.” she said. “You should get back to it. Can’t imagine your weaselly little handler’s going to be pleased that you stepped out of such a high-class event for such a low-level alert.”

He blinked sharply, then recovered himself. “I suppose my breath gave me away?”

“Not too many Banking Clan strongholds on ice planets,” she explained. “We’ll be off this base before you can send in reinforcements, so there’s no use trying to pump me further.” She pulled herself back to the tunnel and grounded herself there. Luke had seen Kylo on Ach-To, and she didn’t want to be seen at a First Order fundraising event if she could help it.

He scowled. “I know exactly what the Resistance is doing right now. You’re breaking into a Republic supply compound on Devaron. What I want to know is why I just felt a massive Dark Side flare.”

“None of your business,” said Rey flatly, turning and striding down the staircase into the darkness. “Go wheedle credits out of loan sharks.” 

She could hear his heavy tread on the staircase behind her as she descended. After a near-miss with a step that crumbled under her boots, she ignited her lightsaber to see by, and pretended that she didn’t hear him do the same.

They had been descending for several minutes in silence when Kylo spoke, hoarsely. “Do you hear them too?”

“No,” she said. The echo bounced off of the tunnel walls.

“Strange,” he said. “They’re talking about you.”

“What are they saying?” she found herself asking against her better judgement.

“You don’t want to know,” he murmured. “It’s not polite.”

She let the first layer of her shields drop, carefully, as if she was stripping the outer skin from a shuura fruit. There it was—a constant, chittering babble, unmistakably vitriolic. 

_Jedi…_

_Crush her bones, squeeze out her brain, slit her throat._

_Kill her now and leave her spirit to us. We’ll make sure she suffers well._

_Nobody needs to know, boy. Maybe she tripped and fell on her own lightsaber._

_Don’t you want to see what’s down there, scum-girl? Don’t you feel it, calling you? Touching strange objects that call to you has worked out so well for you in the past...maybe we’ll let him give your teeth to your friends to remember you by._

She slammed her shields back up. “Chatty bunch,” she observed coolly. “At least you have the decency to be succinct when you brutally murder your mentor figures.”

“I told you not to listen,” Kylo said behind her. “Of course, I should have guessed that you take pride in disobeying friendly advice. You must have driven my uncle insane.”

She ignored him. “Are all darksiders talkative, except for you, or is this staircase only for the particularly annoying ones?”

“I’d imagine being dead for untold ages tends to loosen one’s self-control.”

They walked in silence for a while more. 

“Long staircase,” said Rey.

“Dangerous contents,” said Kylo. “They had to keep the general populace out somehow.”

“Why haven’t you come here yourself?” she asked.

“Jedi temples are often warded against Dark Side users. Especially the ones with storage space for Sith artifacts.”

“So that’s what’s down here. And by going myself, with the bond covering your presence, I’m letting you get close to powerful objects that could turn the tide of the war.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “But you couldn’t use them anyway. They’re my birthright. You might as well let me have them.”

“I could shut off the connection,” she pointed out.

“Yes. You could do that, but then I’d just get back in. It seems to coincide with energy surges on either end of the bond, and if you step one toe in that artifact room, I’ll be right there with you.”

“Fine,” said Rey. “I can’t stop you from being here, then.” She stepped off of the staircase. Ahead of her was a blank stone doorway.

“What are you going to do?” said Kylo suspiciously, jogging down the final steps to come up beside her. “There’s a second part to that statement, Rey. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

She ignored him and found the door’s palm lock. Slowly and carefully, she fed the Force into it. Jedi buildings were built to serve centuries’ worth of personnel, so the security systems relied on Light Side presence rather than retinal scanning or voice activation, which required a list of personnel with access. It was useful for getting into places centuries after the fact, but it had probably been a nightmare to keep Padawans out of restricted areas.

“What are you doing?” Kylo said again. 

She let her hand fall away from the palm lock. The door swung open. “Come on,” she said, and stepped inside, holding her saber up to light the way.

The doors slammed shut behind them immediately. “Rey, what do you think is going to come out of this?” Kylo said at her back. Even with both their sabers ignited, it was impossible to see anything of the small room beyond the outlines of a few shelves. The darkness laid thickly across her shoulders like creeping fingers, and the air was stale and dry. 

Rey took a breath and tried to center herself. It was harder, down here. She felt cut off and unnatural. “I think you’re going to try to take one of these artifacts, because I didn’t stop you from coming in.”

“And what will you do?” said Kylo, low and dangerous. His saber shifted a little, as if he was tightening his grip in preparation for her opening move.

“I’m going to try to destroy them,” she said, and loosed a circular blast of power that knocked him clear off his feet and to the edge of the chamber. Objects came clattering off of the shelves. The voices from the stairwell hissed by the edges of her shields.

He was on his feet almost immediately, harrying at her guard, while his presence in the bond battered relentlessly against hers. “You know you can’t win this,” he seethed, feinting towards her shoulder before spinning away to land a cut to her leg. 

Rey focused on defending against him rather than attacking. He was clearly trying to prevent her from unleashing a second blast by inflicting enough hits to distract her and sap her energy. She reached out with the Force and numbed her pain from the cut. _There is only peace, and with peace comes clarity. I need clarity to destroy these things of darkness._

Kylo launched himself at her, his face a twisted grimace. She brought her saber up to meet his and shoved back against him. “You can’t destroy these artifacts, Rey,” he snarled. “All the might of the Jedi Order couldn’t destroy them. Why do you think they’re locked in here?”

With her left hand at her side, Rey beckoned a small, smooth bit of obsidian towards their clashing sabers. It came unwillingly at first, but she redoubled her concentration and yanked it with all her might, holding it against her blade until it cracked down the middle and shattered into five different jagged pieces. 

“Clever,” said Kylo, breaking the stalemate between their sabers to swipe a glancing cut towards her knees. She jumped out of the way, breathing hard, and he pulled away to the opposite end of the darkened room. “But they’ll reform themselves. And in the meantime, there are hundreds of artifacts here, and you don’t have the energy to destroy them individually. As soon as I feel this connection closing, I can grab any artifact I choose and be gone.” Even at the opposite wall, he was still within striking length, and he kept his saber up and ready. Rey could just barely see his eyes narrowing in the dim red light.

She smiled, slow and savage. “Right until I smash another artifact and create another energy surge, dragging you back into our connection. One of us will tire first, and it won’t be me.” She reached into the Force, readying another blast.

Against the other wall, Kylo scoffed. “Don’t try that again, scavenger,” he said, and in the Force she felt him tugging at the energy in the room to prepare a blast of his own.

“Try and stop me,” Rey said, willing herself into equanimity. She reached deep into her connection to the Force and _called_. Against the wall, Kylo’s face twisted, and he shifted his stance, grounding himself deep into the floor. Distantly, she realized that the walls of the chamber were vibrating around them. She choked in a desperate breath, reaching out further, feeling as if she was spread impossibly thin—

Everything snapped. Both blasts unleashed, exploding and imploding simultaneously. Rey’s connection to the Force slammed shut, and the space where it had been throbbed violently inside her mind. She screamed in pain and shock, a loud animal keening that startled even her. She was falling and ascending at once, torn apart from the inside. She kicked out and felt nothing; she forced her eyes to open but the wind against her face was too strong. Somewhere, she could hear Kylo gasping out great, heaving, ragged breaths. She clutched desperately for the Force and found nothing.

Then suddenly everything stopped. She was on solid ground, and she could feel the Force again. All around her were blurs of bright color, bobbing and weaving faster than she could track. Her knees swayed as if they might give out. 

There was a burst of light and motion in front of her. “Rey!” Kylo yelled, and on sheer instinct, she rolled out of the way until she hit a wall. She crouched there for a moment, breathing hard, and tried to center herself. When she looked up again, the bobbing shapes had resolved themselves into hundreds of lanes of air traffic. She was lying by the side of a landspeeder lane, and Kylo Ren was ducking through traffic towards her, looking shaken.

“What the kriff was that?” Rey asked.

He shook his head. There was blood crusting on his temple. “I don’t know. Can you walk? We need to get out of traffic.”

She braced herself against the wall and rose to her feet, testing her weight on each foot deliberately. “I’m fine. You?”

Kylo’s shoulders were tense. “Comparatively uninjured. I hit my head hard when we landed, but it doesn’t seem too pressing. Do you want to keep trying to kill each other here, or can we get inside before you attack me again?”

“I wasn’t attacking you,” said Rey, reaching for calmness. “I was destroying the artifacts.”

“If all those hits were intended for the artifacts, your aim is terrible,” he said, climbing the stairs to the sidewalk.

“You’re just purposely misreading things now,” said Rey. “I don’t want you dead, I want the people I care about to be safe. That means keeping you from experimenting with ancient, powerful weapons.”

“I’ve lost much of my previous interest in harnessing ancient Sith artifacts. Too unpredictable.”

“No idea why,” Rey muttered. Out loud she said, “So no immediate plans to attack me, then?”

“At least until we figure out where we are and how we can get back to our respective sides,” Kylo offered.

“Deal. Do you think we might be on Coruscant?” Rey asked, swiveling her head to take in the wide variety of posters, traffic, and signs.

“When were you last on Coruscant?” Kylo asked.

She frowned. “I’ve never been. But Poe showed me some holovids from the New Republic that were set there. Why?”

“Keep walking and talk softer,” he said without looking at her. “I asked if you’ve been because the First Order quietly took over Coruscant’s central systems two standard months ago. I wasn’t there, but I can still safely guess it doesn’t look like this. It barely even looked like this when I was young. We must be somewhere else, some urban, inhabited system with the same level of technological advancement. I don’t know where this system’s loyalties lie, but either way, one of us is a fugitive. Hence, the walking.”

They turned a corner into a central plaza area. “You’re wrong,” said Rey.

Kylo growled. “Just because we’re enemies doesn’t mean every single observation I make is incorrect, and you’re arrogant to think so. What, do you imagine every citizen in the galaxy is sympathetic to your idealistic crusade?”

“No,” said Rey. “I literally mean that you’re wrong.” She jerked her head towards the opposite side of the plaza, where a large banner read “Welcome to Coruscant!” in cheery block letters.

“No,” said Kylo. “No, that’s not right—”

He trailed off suddenly, his eyes fixed on a point below the banner. What little color there was in his face had drained entirely. Rey followed his gaze to a scrolling headline on the top of what appeared to be a news station. 

“Will 14 GrS become the year the Republic finally militarizes?” it said.

The next headline was a picture of a young woman with kind eyes. She had more hair than Rey had ever seen on another person, piled carefully on top of her head. The letters below it said, “Inside the career of Senator Padmè Naberrie—the newest influencer to watch.”

Kylo drew a shaky breath. “ _Kriff,_ ” he swore. He turned to look at Rey. “You were right. We are on Coruscant.”

The realization dawned. “Wait, you don’t think that—”

“The Great ReSynchronization was 36 years before the Battle of Yavin,” Kylo said tersely. “Therefore, we are on Coruscant, in 22 BBY, fifty-six years before the battle we left, with no conceivable way of getting back to our time. Your friends will undoubtedly think that you died, and my empire will be leaderless or under the leadership of Hux, which is a fate worse than death.”

Rey froze, calculating. “I’ll never see Poe and Finn again,” she realized. 

“And I have a bigger problem than your loneliness,” Kylo said, indicating a huge billboard up ahead. It depicted a towering hooded figure, menacing a cowering family of Twi’leks with a double-bladed red saber. Block letters next to the image read: “IF YOU SEE SOME SITH, SAY SOMETHING! REPORT ANY DARK SIDE SIGHTINGS TO YOUR PLANETARY SENATOR TODAY!” Smaller text below offered cash rewards for legitimate tips, and directed informants who wished to remain anonymous to post a tip on JediOrderLiaisonToThePublic.holonet.info/sithtips. 

“I have one thing to say,” said Rey.

“Really? Just one?” said Kylo.

“This is all your fault.”


	2. Chapter 2

“First things first,” said Kylo an hour later, after they had successfully mind-tricked a bank owner into supplying them with era-current credit chips, “we need to find a place to stay.”

“Okay,” said Rey, through a mouthful of Coruscanti street food. “How about over there?” She pointed to a dingy-looking building protruding out from a nearby skyscraper.

Kylo eyed it as if it intended to pull a blaster on him. “No,” he said. “How about over there?” He pointed at a palatial complex adjoining a private park. Signs surrounding it advertised “The Best Night’s Sleep You’ll Ever Have, or the Best Refund in the Galaxy,” and large neon arrows that clashed with the decor pointed out the suites where various dignitaries had stayed over the years.

“Absolutely not,” said Rey, firmly. “Not a chance.”

“It’s clearly safer than yours.”

“Mine isn’t absolutely crawling with cameras and holovid reporters,” she pointed out.

“No, it’s crawling with bounty hunters, Hutt gangsters, lower-ranking clan members, and other easily angered types,” Kylo said dismissively. “We’d disappear, true, but so would all our credits and several of our limbs.”

“We could split up,” Rey said thoughtfully.

“Please,” said Kylo. “As if you’d last a day here without me. I’m barely managing to avoid attention, and I’m the one with a formal history education.” He reached over and stole a piece of fried crispic from her sack.

“Fair. Listen, don’t take this personally, but I have to ask. How do I know you’re not going to lightsaber me in my sleep, long-term?”

He glared at her. “Only your old master does that, Rey. Unless he taught you the technique?”

She reached for another piece of crispic. It was much better than Resistance rations. “Sorry. I didn’t phrase that well.”

“If you meant to ask how you know I’m not going to kill you in general, long-term, the answer is that if we stay together, neither of us will have the time or resources to pull off a double cross.”

Rey took a moment to think about that. “You could still lightsaber me at any time.”

“True,” he acknowledged. “But I’d still be stuck in the past. There’s no military reason for me to kill you anymore, and vice versa.” He paused thoughtfully. “This is really good crispic.”

“I love the red sauce,” said Rey. 

“Of course you do,” said Kylo. “You don’t know better. It’s too sweet, the way they do it on Coruscant. There’s a pub on Corellia run by an old Rebellion informant that made the best crispic I ever tasted. I almost regret shooting the management.”

“Oh,” said Rey. “Why did you shoot them?”

Kylo shrugged and licked crumbs off of his lips. “He tried to shoot me.”

She found a small bag with some sort of candied fruit in it, took one, and passed him another. It was tangy and chewy, just the sort of thing Rose would have loved. “You said neither of us has a military reason to kill each other.”

“Yes, I did say that.” She felt a tiny flicker of defensiveness from him. “Do you disagree?” 

“No,” she said slowly, tearing off another bite of fruit with her teeth. “But that’s not enough for us to work together.”

She could feel him eyeing her speculatively, sizing her up. “We had less in Snoke’s throne room,” he offered after a moment. 

“Ben,” she said. His face went still and impassive as he heard the name—a purposeful nonreaction. “We both know you don’t just kill for military benefit.”

He swallowed harshly. “So? Go on and say it, Rey.”

“Do you—do _we_ have personal reasons to want each other dead?” she asked.

He thought about it for a moment, chewing on his fruit. “I don’t want you dead, Rey,” he said after a while. “Do you want me dead?”

“I used to,” she admitted. 

“But you don’t anymore.”

“I didn’t say that,” she retorted without thinking. Then she regained control of herself. “I need to know something.”

“Tell me.”

“Are you sorry?” she said, looking up to meet his eyes.

He looked away quickly and cleared his throat. “You know, I think we should consider that hotel, over there,” he hedged, his voice thick and uncomfortable. “Mid-price, decent clientele, fairly close to the Temple, the Senate, and the major transportation centers—”

“Ben, I asked a question.”

“The security cameras are outdated enough when we’re from that we can hack them easily, but recent enough that it’ll be difficult for others to do the same,” he continued obstinately.

“So that’s it, then?” she asked, feeling a flash of anger. “Back to the hotel conversation, the instant I say anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

“Stop doing this, Rey.”

“Doing what?” she challenged. “I asked you to prove to me—”

“How do you want me to prove it to you?” he snarled all at once, turning back to look at her and leaning down. “If I told you that I see them every time I close my eyes, telling me that they made me the way that I am, would that be enough? How about if I told you that my mind is barely my own and I have never known one single moment of peace for two decades, Rey, would that affect whether you want to _kill_ me?”

“I asked if you regretted it, not—the rest,” she said. “That’s what I wanted to know.”

“I do regret it,” he said, his consonants clipped and terse. “But that changes nothing.”

“I don’t want you dead,” Rey said after a moment. “I didn’t kill you on Starkiller, and if I was ever going to do it, it would have been then.”

“That doesn’t count. You didn’t know me back then,” he insisted.

“Exactly,” she said. “I don’t personally want you dead now, because I know you now.” She paused, searching for something else to say to break the tension and settled on, “That hotel up there, right?”

“Right,” he said, nodding. It wasn’t friendly, like it had been, but it wasn’t hostile either.

* * *

They booked a room with double beds and took turns in the fresher before they settled down to polish off the last of the food and make a plan.

“Item one on our list,” said Rey, licking grease off her fingers slowly, “should be food. We should get more food, I think. Some to eat and some for emergencies.”

Kylo looked as if he was tempted to say something biting, but instead he nodded sharply and typed “food” onto the datapad.

“We need to figure out why we’re here,” he said after a long moment. “Obviously something happened with the interaction between our two Force blasts and one of the Sith artifacts. But I don’t know which one.”

“So we find a ship and try to travel to Devaron,” Rey suggested. “Whatever it is, it’s likely already there.”

“Could be,” said Kylo thoughtfully. “Or it was somewhere else, and it got moved to Devaron for safekeeping by a Jedi Purge survivor. Until we know what we’re looking for, we have only a minimal chance of stumbling across it.”

“So we break into the Jedi Temple, then?” Rey said, tapping her finger against the hilt of her saber thoughtfully. 

Kylo chewed and swallowed.

“Well?” she asked impatiently, as the silence stretched out. 

His eyes widened near-imperceptibly. “Wait, are you actually suggesting that?” he said. “I assumed you were trying to mock me.”

She shrugged. “I broke out of your best military base and lived to tell the tale. Breaking into the Temple isn’t that much of a stretch.”

“This conversation is shedding fascinating light on the Resistance’s military strategy,” Kylo commented dryly. “Why would we break into the Jedi Temple?”

“You have a better idea?”

“We find a ship and travel to Moraband—Korriban, in this time period—in the Outer Rim. It’s the old Sith homeworld, so it makes sense to go there for information on Sith artifacts.” He leaned back, clearly pleased with himself.

“You’d rather rummage through a rim planet full of millennia-old Darkside temples than break into the Jedi Archives,” Rey repeated blankly. “Even if there are written records on Korriban, we won’t be able to read them.”

“Best case scenario, we find a holocron with the information we need. Worst case scenario, we find nothing and we’ve wasted a trip. Medium-case scenario, we find written records. I have a decent smattering of old Sith dialects, and even if I can’t read them, we can try to translate.”

“You make it sound so easy,” she deadpanned, swiping the last of the red sauce with her finger and licking it clean.

“You,” said Kylo, “make it sound as if breaking into the Jedi Temple won’t end with the entire Order tracking us down. I’m a Darkside user, and you’re a feral heretic by their standards. This isn’t Luke Skywalker’s Order.”

“No, it’s a source of information that’s close by, presumably well-organized, and not an abandoned hell-world in the Outer Rim,” she argued. “We should at least try. The Force landed us here, which means there has to be a reason.”

He raised an eyebrow. “To clarify—when you say ‘the Force’, you mean ‘the unidentified, unstable, unpredictable, and highly dangerous Sith artifact that demonstrably wants me to kill you and hide your body’. And by ‘landed us here’, you mean ‘dropped us on Coruscant in this time period, for reasons as yet unrevealed but doubtlessly nefarious’. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

Rey yawned. “We’re not going to agree on next steps tonight, are we?” 

“There’s no way it took you this long to realize that,” Kylo scoffed. “We barely agreed on the hotel. I almost had to mindtrick you into letting me buy the food.”

“We could have split it! We both stole the credits anyway, so it hardly matters whose stash we dip into first.”

“I was standing closer!” he protested. “And you just proved my point.”

“It didn’t take me this long to notice that we’re terrible at compromise. It took this long for the food to run out,” Rey explained. “Before that, I was happy to let you talk.”

“If you’re too tired to keep arguing, you should sleep,” Kylo suggested. “I can watch.”

“Watch me sleep?”

His face twisted in discomfort. “That came out wrong. I was offering to take the first watch.”

“Oh,” said Rey. “Didn’t you pick this hotel because it seemed safe?”

“Not worth taking chances, especially the first night. I’ll plan to wake you in six standard hours,” he said, and turned in his chair to face the window. She took it for the dismissal it clearly was, crawled into her bed, and fell asleep.

* * *

“Hello, Rey,” said an elderly man sitting across from her, with a grey beard and a gentle smile. “Do you prefer caf or tea?” His accent—posh Coruscanti, a little roughened by age—was faintly familiar to her, although she couldn’t remember how.

“Caf,” she said, automatically. She was sitting on the hard, familiar plastic chairs of the Resistance commissary on D’Qar. Every detail of the empty room was correct, down to the scorch mark on the wall from the time when Jess Pava tried blasting Snap’s attempt at avian steak to see if molecular agitation made the meat chewable. The only out-of-place detail was the tray on the table, which held, incongruously, an ornate tea service. The teapot, caf pitcher and mugs were painted with creeping vines and delicate flowers, and a small plate at the center held sweetened oro bark, which Rey recognized as one of Leia’s favorite foods from the Alderaanian diaspora.

“Isn’t this a lovely set?” the man asked, reaching for the caf pitcher with steady hands. “It’s from Naboo. It belonged to one of my oldest friends.”

“It’s beautiful,” Rey said. “What are you doing in my dream?”

The man leaned over the table and handed her a cup. “Careful,” he warned. “It’s hot. Did your Master ever talk about me with you, Rey?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Who are you?”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he said, enunciating briskly. “I was his first teacher. I’ve been watching over you when I can.”

Rey shook her head. “Master Luke was trained by a man named Ben,” she said, in between two tentative sips of caf. “That’s who Leia named her son after. But the only thing my Master ever told me about him was that Ben was the saddest man he ever knew.”

Obi-Wan looked as if he wanted to argue with that, though he hid it well. “I see. We’ll have to arrange an introduction, then,” he said, and closed his eyes. 

When he opened them, there was a third mug, already filled with steaming H’kak bean tea, and Luke Skywalker was sitting next to Obi-Wan.

“I know you can’t project into this time period for long,” Obi-Wan said, “but I thought you might be able to vouch for my trustworthiness, Luke.”

Luke rolled his eyes fondly. “Ben, meet your grandpadawan. Rey, this is Ben. Ben is who he says he is, unless he claims to have lived a good, long, fulfilling, emotionally stable life. In that case, he’s a liar.”

“Glowing praise,” said Obi-Wan, with amused sarcasm. “Thank you, my apprentice.”

“More to the point,” said Luke seriously, “I trust him to help you with this.”

“Master Luke, what am I doing here?” Rey asked. “There was a blast, and now Ben—the other one—and I are in this time.”

Obi-Wan and Luke shared a knowing glance. “I think we have an idea as to what might have happened,” said Luke. 

Obi-Wan rubbed at the center of his forehead as he spoke. He seemed deeply exhausted. “You see, Rey,” he said, “I believe that the confluence of Light and Dark energy in such a dangerous, volatile space created a point of instability in the fundamental currents of the Force.”

“Okay,” said Rey. “And the instability activated a Sith artifact?” 

“Not exactly,” said Luke. 

Obi-Wan sighed, suddenly looking a full year older. “Theoretically,” he said delicately, “any being possessed of a certain degree of power, and lacking, shall we say, the circumspection to use their power appropriately, could have influenced the Force in that moment, causing your temporal displacement.”

“Someone sent me and Kylo Ren back to the Clone Wars,” Rey translated. “Why would they do that?”

Obi-Wan looked pained. “Because,” said Luke, “if Ben and I have the same idea, this person wants to attempt to rewrite the outcome of the war, and he’s seized on you and my nephew as Force-users powerful enough to do that for him.”

“That sounds like it’s—” Rey trailed off.

“Extremely risky?” Obi-Wan suggested. “An incredibly dangerous use of the Force? The sort of thing only a self-centered, unstable lunatic with impossibly high self-confidence would think he could pull off? I could go on.”

“She gets it,” said Luke. “I’m sure my father is shocked to hear that you disapprove.”

Rey’s mouth dropped open mid-chew. “Darth—” she began, then swallowed hastily. “Darth Vader sent me back in time with Kylo Ren?”

“In a characteristically reckless action that very nearly killed both of you,” said Obi-Wan, with barely controlled anger. “And now we don’t know how to undo the damage he’s inflicted on the timeline.”

“Obi-Wan and I,” said Luke carefully, “disagree on how best to resolve this. I see your situation, unfortunate as it is, as an opportunity to improve conditions for a great number of people.”

“I still can’t believe that you agree with Anakin,” Obi-Wan muttered.

“I’m not agreeing. I’m simply saying that now that it’s happened, they might as well let it play out,” Luke said mildly. “Rey is talented and bright, and Kylo, for all his faults, has the stubbornness of both his parents put together. They’ll see it through. As far as I can tell, it’s hard to imagine that they could create a worse outcome than the current one.”

“They definitely could,” said Obi-Wan soberly. “Luke, Rey, I need you to hear me. I would dearly love the chance to save everyone, but it’s too much of a risk. To name just one example, suppose events alter substantially enough that Luke is never born. Then Anakin never goes back to the Light, and this whole event becomes a paradox with the potential to wipe out the galaxy.”

“I know,” said Luke. “It’s not up to us, though.” He looked at Rey. “What do you think, Rey?”

She swallowed her caf. “Two questions. First, how long before the Force distortion resolves itself and we get sent back?”

“We don’t know,” said Luke. “Possibly twenty-four hours, possibly never, especially if he’s still exerting influence on the timeline. It’s not like this type of thing happens often.”

“Okay,” she said. “Master Kenobi—”

“Call me Obi-Wan.”

“Obi-Wan.” She paused, trying to think of a way to ask what she wanted to know without bringing up too many traumatic memories. Finally she settled on, “How bad was it?”

He winced. “Very bad, Rey. Very bad indeed.”

“He’s downplaying it,” said Luke grimly. “Rey, suppose that in the next three hours, almost everyone you had ever spoken to, let alone cared about, died violently, many of them before your very eyes. And that was only on the first day of an Empire that lasted for longer than you’ve been alive so far.”

She downed the rest of the caf in a single bracing sip. “Okay,” she said seriously. “I can’t speak for Kylo, but I’m willing to try. Where do I start?”

Luke shot Obi-Wan an _I-told-you-so_ grin. Obi-Wan ignored it and turned to speak to Rey. “Alright. If you truly intend to change events, you’ll be more effective if you have an ally in this time period.” His manner was detached and businesslike. “I’d suggest my younger self, but I fear that I am too close to the situation in this instance. I don’t know how I’d react if given the pertinent information.”

“You’d do the right thing, whatever that would be,” Luke said softly. “I know you would.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “Thank you for saying that, Luke, but I’m afraid we can’t risk it. Rey, I’m going to suggest that you find an old friend of mine named Siri Tachi. She was one of the best Jedi I ever knew, and she won’t bring this to the Order unless it’s absolutely necessary. Get her alone and tell her the whole story. If she doesn’t believe that I sent you, tell her—” He hesitated for a moment. “Tell her that I still remember hiding in the caves on Quadrant Seven with her.”

“Siri Tachi, Quadrant Seven,” said Rey. “Then what?”

“I should be able to stay in contact with you, to help with strategy and planning,” said Obi-Wan. “Now that we’ve met, I might even be able to appear to your conscious mind.”

“Whereas I,” said Luke, wryly, “am not even a sacrilegious thought in my father’s subconscious yet, which means that the longer I stay, the more I risk becoming untethered from the Force. Rey, I’ll leave you in Obi-Wan’s capable hands, for now.”

“Thank you for coming,” Rey said. Impulsively she added, “I missed you.”

Luke smiled as he got up from the table. “I miss you too, Rey. Give my nephew hell from me, and may the Force be with you both.” In the space between one breath and the next, he was gone. She turned back to Obi-Wan, but before she could think of anything else to say, there were hands on her shoulders, shaking them hesitantly. 

“Find Siri Tachi,” Obi-Wan said firmly. “Good luck, Rey. I’ll be watching.”

“Siri Tachi,” Rey repeated.

“Who?” said Ben’s voice from somewhere above her head. She blinked her eyes open to see him gazing down at her in confusion. 

“Dream I had,” she mumbled. “I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.”

Ben stared at her for a moment. “Why—” he began. Then he cut himself off abruptly and clambered into his bed. “Never mind. Wake me in six standard.”

“I will,” said Rey, and settled down to watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS I WASN’T EXPECTING ANYONE WOULD ACTUALLY READ THE THING!!!!!
> 
> I mean, welcome to the continuation of this fic! I am your exceedingly suave host/author Liv. 
> 
> No, seriously, guys, I am so psyched to do this! Love you all, and loved reading your comments! Next time: our first glimpse at the inside of Kylo’s head, Predictably Depressing Tatooine Fairytale Hour with Anakin Skywalker’s Force Ghost, and the first appearance of the titular List.
> 
> (edited Feb 9 to add section breaks, which disappeared when I pasted from Google Docs lol...)
> 
> <3<3<3<3<3  
> —Liv


	3. Chapter 3

He was in the restraint chair of a Starkiller Base detention cell. Around him, alarms blared, and the very air seethed and hissed with anger.

“I killed you,” Kylo Ren said, quietly and calmly. “Your presence in my nightmares is an illusion and nothing more. You don’t get to stay in my head.”

“I’m not Snoke,” an unfamiliar voice spat beside his left ear.

“Who are you, then?” said Kylo. “You can’t imprison me in my own mind for long. I’ll break out and make you regret trying it.”

“The question is not who I am.” The voice was a young man’s, vibrating with righteous anger and tense with some unspoken truth. “The question is, who are you? Are you a slave, or are you free?”

“I am the Supreme Leader of the First Order,” said Kylo. “Grandfather.”

His captor stepped out to where Kylo could see him. “You’re not a leader of anything,” said Anakin Skywalker’s Force ghost, in full Jedi Knight regalia. “You’re an idiot.”

Kylo set his jaw. “You have no right to judge me,” he said. “And the restraints are a definite overreaction.”

“You seem to have a talent for running away from people who try to tell you the truth,” said Anakin. “Your mother, your uncle, your crazy prodseeker of a father.” He listed them off on his fingers as he spoke. “I wanted to make sure you sat still long enough to listen to me.”

“Prodseeker?” said Kylo. His mouth felt too dry. 

Anakin’s face darkened. “Someone who antagonizes the bosses to distract them from picking on someone weaker and gets electroprodded for their troubles, then stands back up and does it over and over again,” he explained. “Prodseeker. Whereas from what I hear, you’re the one who holds the prod, now.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kylo said. 

Anakin grinned, a slow, feral spread of teeth. “I disagree. I think I’m the only person in the whole galaxy, past and present, who really understands who and what you are.”

“Tell me then, Grandfather,” said Kylo. “Who am I, in your opinion?”

“As I said before,” said Anakin. “An idiot. Did Luke tell you about how I died?”

“You died during the Battle of Endor, on the Second Death Star,” Kylo recited tonelessly. “Palpatine was trying to make Luke Skywalker his apprentice. You sacrificed yourself and saved my uncle.”

“Passable,” said Anakin. “What do you know about the Geonosian clone armies?”

“Is there a reason for this history lesson?” Kylo asked.

“Humor me,” said Anakin. His posture was ramrod-straight. “The Geonosian clone armies were humans that we bought and sold. We told ourselves that they were employees, even though we knew better than that. We said they’d get nice retirement packages, when the war was over. Then we sent them out to the front lines, because it’s easier to keep a war from becoming unpopular when there isn’t a draft.”

“I still don’t see your point,” said Kylo.

“What happened to the Geonosian clone armies?” Anakin asked, almost gently. “Tell me.”

“Their override chips caused them to massacre their Jedi generals. Vast numbers of clones died in the ensuing battle. Some escaped to the Outer Rim, a few joined up with the Alliance, and most of them ended up as Imperial soldiers. The present-day Stormtrooper legions are modeled after the old GAR.”

“Good, Kylo. Now let me tell you about yourself, since you’re clearly so up to date on history that you don’t feel the need to draw lessons from it,” Anakin said, with polished sarcasm. It didn’t fit him well; it seemed as if he had unconsciously borrowed the mannerism from someone else without ever adapting it to suit himself. “I think that you feel like a stranger in your own mind. You feel pulled around in so many different directions that it’s hard to remember what the person you were would have wanted, but you tell yourself it’s worth it, because this is the price you pay for strength.”

“So?”

“I can’t tell you who you are now, Kylo, but I know what I was then.”

“What were you?” Kylo rasped hoarsely. 

“Do you know the tale about the krayt dragon and the landbarge?” Anakin asked. 

“No,” Kylo said. “Outer Rim stories didn’t make it into the Core, when I was younger.”

Anakin nodded. “In the desert, there was a mighty krayt dragon who sunned himself every day on the dunes,” he said. “A man came into the desert while the dragon was sleeping. He slashed the sails of the dragon’s wings, muzzled his mouth shut, and tethered him to a landbarge. When the dragon awoke, he tried to fly away, but he could not. He tried to swallow the man, but he could not. The man told him to pull the landbarge to Mos Espa, or he would never eat again, and the dragon did as the man said. This went on for seven times seven years, until all the other dragons of his clutch had grown to their full wingspan, but the dragon who pulled the barge remained the size he was the day the man took him.”

“One day, the dragon pulled the barge past a watering place where a nest of nine krayt younglings was, and they called out to him in their minds. ‘Elder,’ they said, ‘why do you pull the barge?’”

“Slowly, and with great difficulty, for he had not spoken in his mind in many years, he answered, ‘Because I cannot fly away, and I cannot swallow the barge, and if I do not pull the barge, I will not eat.’ And the younglings mourned this.”

“But the littlest youngling had sharper eyes than the rest, and she spoke to him again. ‘Your wings are healed,’ she said, ‘though thick and white with old scarring. When the man takes off your muzzle so that you may eat, snap him up in your jaws, break your tether, and fly away.’ And the dragon thought on this plan, and decided that it was good.”

“That night, he did as the littlest krayt youngling had said. Instead of bending to eat the scraps from the man’s meal, the dragon opened his jaws wide and swallowed the man whole. With his teeth and talons, he broke the tether that attached him to the landbarge. He roared a vast roar and flapped his wings with all of his strength. But he had spent so long pulling the barge that he no longer knew how to fly, and he decided in his pain and rage that the littlest krayt youngling had betrayed him.”

“That night, he went to Mos Espa and stole many great logs of wood, and with the labor of his teeth and talons, he fashioned a landbarge for himself, big enough to hold all his weight. When it was finished, he dragged it back to the watering place under cover of darkness. As the nest of krayt younglings lay sleeping he approached them. One by one, he slashed the sails of their wings, muzzled their mouths, and tethered them to his landbarge. Only the littlest krayt dragon escaped. She heard her clutch-mates cry to her to save herself, and woke as he slashed through the first sail of her wing. Even in her pain, she clawed at his eye with her talons, drawing so much blood that he could not see to follow her.”

“When she was gone, the dragon commanded the younglings to pull his barge to Mos Eisley, or he would not let them hunt the bantha that night—for in his twisted mind, he thought that this was mercy, compared to how he had suffered. There were eight of them to pull him, so it would not be taxing, and he would let them hunt the bantha, instead of making them eat of his scraps. And they hated him, but they could not fight him.”

“On the road to Mos Eisley, the dragon met a man, who was intrigued by the dragon barge. He offered to buy one of the dragons away, and the dragon told him that he needed all of them to pull him between Mos Eisley and Mos Espa, for he could not fly.”

“And the man said to the dragon, ‘I will buy from you the secret of how to train dragons to pull barges. I will buy from you these dragons, and I will give them barges of their own and teach them to hunt dragons to pull them. You will have a hundred dragons to pull you, if that is what you wish.”

“The dragon thought about the littlest youngling, who had escaped him. ‘Very well,’ he said, smiling slowly to himself, the lazy smile of a predator with nothing to lose. “I will teach you.” And he settled back down into his barge.”

Anakin leaned down until his face was level with Kylo’s. “On Tatooine, we have a name for slaves who escape and go on to own slaves. We call them barge-dragons— _hkechuatee_ , and we don’t specify whether they’re in the barge, or still pulling it, because it doesn’t matter. I was a barge-dragon for almost three decades, but I wore out my teeth and talons to free my children. I died so my family would always be freeborn, and you took my sacrifice, spat upon it, and hitched yourself to a landbarge of your own will. Then you slashed countless sails, millions on millions, because you were suffering and you wanted others to share it. So tell me, grandson. What does that make you?”

“I don’t know,” said Kylo, after thinking for what felt like a long time. “I’m sorry, Grandfather. I wish I did know.”

“I don’t know either,” said Anakin. “But whatever you are, you’re going to fix it.”

Kylo blinked in surprise. “You did this. You sent me back.”

“Yes,” said Anakin decisively. “I saw an opportunity and I took it. I don’t care about paradoxes and causality and timelines and the garbage Obi-Wan is filling that girl’s head with. I don’t care what it takes, Kylo Ren.”

“You’re going to possess my body in the real world,” said Kylo slowly, “and use me to change the timeline.”

“No,” said Anakin, almost indignant. “I’m not one of your First Order slavers. Not anymore at least. But you owe me a debt, grandson.”

“I owe you nothing,” said Kylo defiantly. “I destroyed the broken things of the past, so that new ones may arise. I did what I had to do, and I pay my own prices.”

Anakin didn’t reply to that. “I have a list,” he said instead. “Of things that went wrong. You change every item on it, and I’ll undo the distortion in the Force that’s keeping you here and send you back. If you fail, or if you make it worse, I will kill you and her and everything you have ever held dear. Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes,” said Kylo, meeting his grandfather’s eyes steadily. “We have an understanding.”

“Good,” said Anakin. He reached down to unlock the restraints, and Kylo woke up.

“Where’s that datapad?” he asked, blinking in the sudden light. “Quickly, Rey.”

Rey uncurled herself from the chair by the window where she had been on watch. “Ben, you can sleep. It hasn’t been six standard yet.”

“Datapad,” he said again, rummaging through the blankets on the bed. 

“Bedside table,” said Rey. “On your right.”

“Good,” he said, and grabbed it.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she asked suspiciously.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to drown out the chatter in his head. “Yes, I promise, I will, but please be quiet. I have to remember. It’s life and death for both of us, Rey.”

“Okay,” she said, and curled back into her chair to let him write.

An hour later, he had a list that looked like this:

_Shmi Lars_

_Clone Army_

_Dooku_

_Ferus Olin_

_Padawan Pack_

_Battle of Umbara_

_Something happened to Obi-Wan on Mandalore_

_Snips left_

_Fives and Tup_

_Ventress and Vos_

_Order 66_

_Padmé_

Rey came and sat on the bed when he had finished. “How much of this do you understand?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Right now it’s just words, mostly,” he said. “I know it probably sounds crazy to you, but my grandfather put them in my head in a dream.”

She nodded. “I had a dream last night as well,” she offered after a moment. “Master Luke and the Obi-Wan from your list spoke to me. They said that if we want to change the outcome of this time period, we need to find a Jedi Knight named Siri Tachi.”

That would mean trying to get into the Temple, then, and most likely exposing himself as a Dark Side user. Hopefully he could talk her out of it. “Did they tell you how we got here?” he asked.

“They’re very angry at your grandfather,” Rey said, which was enough of an answer. “Did Vader say whether the list was in chronological order?”

Kylo studied it. “I think it is. I know some of these things already. Order 66 and Padmé are self-evident, at least.”

“Stop Order 66 from being executed, averting the Jedi Purge. Padmé is the Senator from the news article, right? What did she do?” Rey asked, curiously.

He swallowed, thickly. “She was the love of my grandfather’s life, or so my mother says. He would have burned down the world if she so much as crooked her little finger.” He paused, trying to find a way to explain how the specter of Padmé Naberrie had haunted so much of his life. “She’s the reason my mother and Han Solo promised in their wedding vows that they would always let each other leave. My grandfather thought he could destroy everything else to keep her by his side, and in the end he destroyed her too.”

“Oh,” said Rey. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head dismissively. “Don’t be. I never knew her. She’s nothing to me but a name in a history book and a handful of political connections on Naboo.”

“In my dream,” Rey said thoughtfully, “Obi-Wan said one of his oldest friends was from there.”

“That would have been her,” said Kylo. “All three of them were extraordinarily close.”

“So that’s two we know,” Rey said. “But those are far off in the timeline.”

Kylo tapped the list. “Shmi Lars was my great-grandmother. She should be getting kidnapped by Tusken Raiders any day now.”

“As soon as we find Siri Tachi, that’s our next stop, then,” said Rey.

He nodded. “Clone Army is obvious. He still holds a grudge against Palpatine and the Kaminoans for implanting those chips to begin with. From his point of view, the whole enterprise is Republic-sanctioned slavery.”

“Stopping the Republic from buying them won’t be enough,” said Rey. “They’ll just be sold somewhere else.”

“True,” said Kylo. “We’ll have to think about it. The next item on the list is Count Dooku of Serenno. He was Palpatine’s second apprentice, but he almost certainly would already have fallen by now, so I don’t know what Grandfather wants.”

“Probably for us to turn him back,” Rey said.

Kylo raised an eyebrow. “Clearly, that task is not as easily accomplished as all you Jedi seem to think it is.”

“We’ll see,” said Rey. Kylo resisted the childish urge to roll his eyes at her.

“Ferus Olin and the Padawan Pack are unfamiliar to me. The Battle of Umbara was a friendly fire incident organized by a Dark Jedi, which seems straightforward enough.”

“We can ask Siri about the ones we don’t know,” Rey suggested. 

Kylo chose to ignore that oncoming argument once again. “Then we have ‘Something happened to Obi-Wan on Mandalore’,” he said, “which is irritatingly vague. Things are almost always happening to people on Mandalore.”

“Obi-Wan didn’t mention Mandalore when I talked to him,” Rey said. “I can ask him about it if he manages to project himself into the physical realm, but I’m not sure he’d answer me. He seems like a fairly private person.”

“Tell me when he shows up,” said Kylo. “I might be able to convince him to clear things up.”

“You can’t mindtrick Force Ghosts,” Rey said. “And he doesn’t seem the type to respond to threats.”

“I said convince, not threaten or mindtrick,” Kylo pointed out equably. He mentally discarded those strategies as effective tools for extracting the truth from Kenobi. “Then we have ‘Snips left’, which is another enigma.”

“Sounds like a name,” Rey said, leaning over his shoulder to inspect the datapad. “Saying ‘left’ implies a choice, or he’d say ‘died’ or ‘reassigned’ or just the name, like Ferus Olin. Therefore, Snips is someone who left him.”

“Could be a droid name,” said Kylo. “Or a clone nickname. Doesn’t sound long enough for a sentient name.”

“True,” said Rey. “Or just someone like me or Finn, who never had a family name for whatever reason.”

“That’s a possibility as well,” he acknowledged. “The only ones besides that are ‘Fives and Tup’ and ‘Ventress and Vos’. Fives is very likely a clone nickname. Even modern-day Stormtroopers take number nicknames more often than other sorts.”

“Stormtroopers besides Finn take names?” Rey asked, looking faintly sick.

He shifted uncomfortably. “It isn’t standard, or necessarily encouraged, so to speak. But some of our officers find it easier to allow nicknames than to memorize all the numbers in their squadron, especially with the recent uptick in the turnover rate.”

Rey still looked sick. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I didn’t think to ask.”

Kylo didn’t know how to respond to that. He cleared his throat and went back to the datapad. “Dryden Vos was a crime lord when my father was younger, but I think the name is originally non-human in origin. As for Ventress, that’s almost certainly Asajj Ventress. She was Dooku’s apprentice during the war, but I’m not sure I ever heard what happened to her.”

“Okay,” said Rey. “So we have two unknowns, four situations involving clones, someone who’s either a clone, a droid, or without a family name, an incident on Mandalore that Vader never got to the bottom of, two dead loved ones of Anakin’s, and two Dark Siders.”

“That sounds about right,” said Kylo. “That’s as much as we’ll get from the list for the time being, I think. Now we go get more food, according to last night’s plan?”

“No,” said Rey, strapping her saber-belt around her waist. “Now we go and find Siri Tachi.”

“No,” said Kylo, feeling a flare of anger. “We already argued about this last night, Rey. If I go within fifty feet of the Temple, someone will notice that I use the Dark Side. I’m not interested in rotting away in a Temple interrogation cell until my grandfather kills me for failing to accomplish his tasks.”

Rey smiled triumphantly. “I thought about that while I was on watch,” she said. “You were just in a Jedi temple yesterday, and no wards went off. I’ll go find Siri Tachi. You stay here, and follow me through the bond. My presence will shield yours, making you seem like a Light Side user.”

“We’d have to be constantly touching for me to appear,” Kylo pointed out obstinately.

Rey shrugged. “Our hands barely brushed, and Luke could suddenly see you. Tap my pinky finger every thirty seconds or so, and we should be fine.”

Kylo sighed. “Right. What could possibly go wrong?”

* * *

As it turned out, Rey’s plan to find Siri Tachi consisted of walking into the Jedi Temple’s visitor waiting area and asking the Initiate on duty if they could please make an appointment with Knight Tachi when she was next on-world and available? To which the Initiate, who was an idiot, took the bait and stammered out that Knight Tachi actually was on-world. Children never seemed to be able to resist the opportunity to correct people, and Jedi children were no exception. By the time the Initiate recovered himself enough to issue what was clearly a standard Temple denial (very sorry, you must be mistaken, all civilian appointments with individual Knights in a non-informant capacity must be cleared with the Council, have a nice day), Kylo had taken advantage of his superior height to lean over the desk and find Tachi’s room on the Temple quarters map.

“I know something you don’t know,” Kylo whispered, stepping carefully on Rey’s toe as they made their way past the waiting chairs to the exit. 

“The location of Siri Tachi’s room?” Rey whispered back. “Kylo, he practically projected it the instant I mentioned her. He’s very afraid of her. She seems to have intimidated most of the students in the crèche by sheer force of personality.”

“I have something better,” said Kylo, brushing his thumb against her wrist. “The name of Siri Tachi’s Padawan.”

Rey’s eyebrows drew together. “How is that relevant?”

“Ordinarily it wouldn’t be.” He drew out the moment. “But seeing as his name is Ferus Olin, I’d say it’s quite pertinent.”

“Kylo,” said Rey, urgently. She plucked at his sleeve.

“Not going to thank me?” he asked, mostly because he knew it would irritate her.

“Not the time,” Rey hissed. “Up ahead, there.”

“I can hear you!” said a husky alto voice, somewhere past them in the entrance hall. A petite figure, cloaked and hooded, stepped into the center of the hall. “I can hear both of you, actually. You’re very loud when you whisper.”

“I’m sorry to bother you,” said Rey, catching Kylo by the arm, “we were just leaving—”

“No you weren’t,” the figure said. Its posture was open and relaxed, but obviously battle-ready. “I’m not new to this game, kids. You were about to try to go around the back and break into the Knight quarters. Did it all the time myself, back in the day.”

“We really weren’t,” Kylo lied hastily, breaking Rey’s grip on his elbow. “Really. I promise we’ll be on our way now.”

“Nice temple you have here,” Rey offered.

“Nice try,” the figure said. “But I still have two more questions for you.” Kylo swiveled his head around as subtly as he could, trying to find alternate exit routes for Rey. He could break the connection and escape, but he imagined that the Jedi Temple was a terrible place to leave Rey alone to defend herself, unless he wanted to put an end to their collaboration once and for all.

“What two questions?” Rey asked. 

“Three questions, actually,” the figure amended. “Just thought up a new one.”

“We’ll answer, Knight Tachi,” said Rey. “Not out here in public, though.”

“Clever of you to recognize me,” said the figure.

“Lucky guess,” Rey said. “Your questions.”

“Here goes. One: how do you know my name? Two—that’s the new one: who sent you to find me? And most importantly, three: what the _kriff_ do you think you’re doing by bringing my Padawan into this?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for reading! Next time: Siri has Some Concerns About This, Kylo has Family Issues, and we meet our first Actual Non-Force Ghost Prequel Character!
> 
> My Siri Tachi faceclaim will always be Caity Lotz (White Canary on Legends of Tomorrow, extremely buff lady, and certified badass), but that’s mostly a matter of personal preference!
> 
> Notes on the list: if you’re confused and don’t mind spoilers, Wookieepedia has articles on everything I mention. If spoilers aren’t your thing, I’m happy to give vague, enigmatic hints in the comments, or you can hold on and wait for the characters to figure it out...
> 
> See you guys next week!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting two days late, as my degree program suddenly decided to offload a frankly ridiculous amount of homework on us this weekend! This is a longer chapter, and next week’s is still longer haha...

In her private quarters with her hood off, Siri Tachi didn’t seem very much like a Jedi to Kylo. Her Force signature reminded him of his father’s favorite smuggling associates—brash, willful, and only partially concerned with bystander safety. She was a few inches shorter than Rey and a little older than him, with blond hair that would have come down to her shoulder blades if it hadn’t been tied into a ponytail at the back of her head. Her eyes were Jedi eyes though—blue and far-seeing, with a carefully practiced non-expression.

One point in her favor as an ally, Kylo reflected, was that she hadn’t killed them yet.

“We didn’t know Ferus Olin was your Padawan,” Rey was explaining, her long fingers wrapped around a mug of herbal tea. He’d seen her surreptitiously check it for truth drugs twice already. “He was on the list from the second dream, the one that Ben had.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Tachi, steepling her fingers. “You’re both from the future, and you’ve been sent back here by a Fallen Jedi from this time to alter the course of the war. You won’t tell me who it is, though, beyond saying they’re related to one of you, which only rules out the non-humanoids.”

“We’ll tell you once we have assurance you won’t turn them in,” Kylo reminded her. 

She ignored him. “And you expect me to believe that my crèchemate’s Force Ghost sent you to get my help.”

“You don’t believe us?” Rey asked. Kylo reached for his mug of tea, deliberately brushing her shoulder in the process. He was beginning to have a sense of how often he needed to make contact to keep his physical presence in the bond—when it had been too long, he felt as if he was receding away from the room, telescoping back into himself.

Tachi shrugged. “If it’s a Separatist plot, it’s by far the most inventive one I’ve ever heard of. Usually they just send battle droids. Then we kill the battle droids, then they send twice as many, and so on. This is definitely not that, but it’s also not a very convincing story.”

“Obi-Wan said that if you needed proof, I should tell you that he still remembers hiding with you in the caves on Quadrant Seven,” Rey added. “Does that help?”

Tachi gave no outward reaction, but the Force in the room rippled near-imperceptibly, as if she’d quickly dissipated a strong emotion through it. “It certainly increases the probability that you’re telling the truth,” she said slowly. 

“He called you one of the best Jedi he knew,” Rey said. 

“All hail the Negotiator,” Siri said dryly. “Kriffing flatterer. If I agree to help you—which, to clarify, I’m not agreeing yet—what do you need?”

“Another eye on the list,” Kylo said. “Some assistance brainstorming potential solutions. Most importantly, secrecy.”

“I can get you the first two,” said Siri. “But if you tell me things about the future, and I don’t like what I hear, I’m going to try to fix it as well. And if that means dropping a suggestive word, here and there, without revealing my source, then you two hardly have the moral high ground to tell me to stop. Clear?” She dared them with her eyes to challenge her.

“Clear,” said Rey instantaneously. “Right, Ben?”

“Clear,” Kylo said, with some reluctance. He nudged Rey’s forearm, under the table. “Try not to throw off our work too much.”

“Can’t make promises,” Tachi said seriously. “But I’ll try. Now, I need all the information if we’re going to do this. Who’s your Darksider?”

Kylo steeled himself and met her eyes. “My grandfather. Darth Vader. But you know him already as Anakin Skywalker.”

“Kriff,” said Siri Tachi. The Force around her vibrated harshly in shock for a long moment. “Skywalker’s practically a youngling.” She took a slow breath, as if to calm herself. 

“You can’t tell anyone,” Rey reminded her gently. “Not even Obi-Wan.”

“I’m not going to tell Kenobi,” Siri said. “That’s too much to make someone carry for their Padawan before it’s even happened. Just—give me a moment, okay?”

He could feel her releasing her emotions into the Force—a quick flash of unreasoning anger and betrayal, thick spools of dread for the future, and a swirling miasma of sorrow. “I won’t make you hear about the things he did after he fell,” Kylo said after a moment. “The point is to avert that. He believes that if we change everything on the list, he won’t Fall.”

“Give me the list,” said Siri, holding out her hand for it. She spoke with the outward calm of an accomplished Jedi, but the set of her shoulders was severe. “I need to know what we’re dealing with.”

He handed Siri the datapad wordlessly. “We‘ve figured out most of it,” Rey said. He felt the sole of her boot press up against his leg.

“We were hoping for clarification on the fourth and fifth entries,” Kylo added. “Your Padawan and something called the Padawan Pack.”

Siri’s lips thinned out as she scanned the list. “I don’t know why Ferus is on here,” she said after a moment. “He doesn’t like Skywalker, but as far as I knew, it was just another run-of-the-mill Padawan rivalry. He’s running an Initiate tutoring session right now, or I’d ask him about it.”

“And the Padawan Pack?” Rey asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” said Siri soberly. “Master Gallia mentioned that the Council is worried about having a shortage of Masters if fighting breaks out over the Separatist crisis. There’s apparently been some talk of creating contingency plans for orphaned Padawans. One idea was to assign them to combat as a group, under the assumption that a large number of Masterless, semi-trained Jedi Padawans will be about as effective as an ordinary Knight-Padawan pair. But that’s not a plan anyone is anxious to enact.”

“That’s terrible,” said Rey. She looked genuinely shaken by the possibility.

Kylo had never been a Padawan. The New Order had rejected most Republic Jedi terminology, and most students had rotated between teachers, since Luke believed that every student at the Temple could gain by learning from all the available teachers. But he tried, for a moment, to imagine being sent to a battlefield with his fellow students, in those terrible, whirling years just before he turned. He reached out into the Force, keeping his presence shielded behind Rey’s, and tried to look down that pathway, but only darkness answered him.

“Any ideas about the rest of the list?” he said, awkwardly, to move things along.

Siri brushed her hair out of her eyes and tapped ‘something happened to Obi-Wan on Mandalore’ thoughtfully. “You should investigate Duchess Satine Kryze,” she said. “Obi-Wan’s known her since they were both teenagers. If he’s involved in something Mandalorian, she’s almost certainly up to her eyeballs in it.”

“The pacifist theorist?” said Kylo. “My uncle was an admirer of her work. My mother kept her letters in her Senate office, but mostly to disagree with them.”

Siri snorted distinctly. “The general consensus in the Senate right now is not so much ‘pacifist theorist’ as ‘idealistic pain in everyone’s sides’. Her planet loves her, mostly, but I can list at least twenty Senators who would be thrilled to attend her funeral.” She scanned further down the list and caught her breath. “Oh, _blast!”_ she hissed. 

“What?” said Rey.

“Did you not know about Senator Amidala?” Kylo asked. He felt around for Rey’s foot under the table.

“Not that, and get off my foot,” said Siri, distractedly attempting to release her emotions. He catalogued concern, underlaid with fondness, and a twist of ironic amusement that disappeared almost too quickly to grasp. “I meant Quin.”

“Who?” said Rey, leaning forward and swiping her shoulder across his upper arm. He pulled his feet back and carefully folded them under his chair.

“Quinlan Vos. My brother, in a manner of speaking. He and Obi-Wan and Bant Eerin were in my age group in the crèche,” Siri explained. “No one wants to see their brother’s name on the same entry of a list as a Fallen Jedi, especially when their brother has the common sense of a Gungan and the pigheadedness of Master Yoda.”

“Oh,” said Kylo. _That_ Vos. He really should have put the pieces together sooner, in hindsight, but Quinlan Vos was more of a footnote than a figure in New Jedi Temple lore. So few records had truly survived Order 66, and he’d been too antisocial to regularly listen to Master-Teacher Tano’s stories of the Old Order. He’d tried to learn a little about Vos for a school project on Grey Jedi, but most of his records had either been classified—and thus destroyed with the Restricted Archives—or skillfully faked. 

“Enough about Quin,” said Siri, abruptly turning businesslike. “Tell me, what’s the first step to stopping this?”

“Transport to Tatooine,” said Rey, decisively. “Anakin’s mother is the first person on his list. And Ben knows from researching his family in the future that she was killed by Tusken Raiders on Tatooine.”

“So we get you transport to Tatooine,” Siri said. “And an encrypted commline to keep in touch with me. But first things first, we get you out of the Temple without attracting undue attention.” She grinned. “How do you feel about dumbwaiter compartments?”

* * *

“You shouldn’t say I did family research in the future,” he whispered to Rey once they were safely, albeit uncomfortably, folded into the astromech-sized elevator.

“Why not?” Rey whispered back. “You know about your family. Therefore, research.”

“That’s a gross oversimplification,” he said evasively. “My family is complicated. I don’t know nearly enough about them to get us through this. And need I remind you that if I don’t get us through this, a member of my complicated family is absolutely going to kill us both. If you pretend that I have even a rudimentary understanding of Anakin Skywalker, you make it less likely that Siri, who actually knows him, will be willing to correct us if we try something stupid.”

“Fine,” said Rey. After a moment she added, “I don’t think that’s what this is about.”

“It is,” said Kylo. “It’s purely a matter of practicality.”

“Tell yourself what you want,” said Rey. “I’ll just be over here, pretending that the person who kept Darth Vader’s melted helmet as a shrine knows nothing at all about Anakin Skywalker’s life.”

Luke had done most of the family research, actually. It had started as a request from Anakin’s Force Ghost—that his ashes be mixed with sand from a specific location on Tatooine and buried on Naboo, as near Padmè as her relatives would allow. When Luke had gone to find the sand, he’d sensed Shmi’s grave nearby in the Force, and stayed on Tatooine for an extra month to track down the details of her story. He had written all his findings about his family’s history in a worn, leather-bound paper notebook that bulged with little things he’d found of them and kept—old flimsis of Padmè in school; a burned, twisted brooch Cliegg bought for Shmi after their wedding that Beru had worn for festival days; a copy of a war recruitment holo starring Anakin; pressed flowers from Varykino, of a species that would have been in season when Anakin and Padmè married. Once, the clasp on the book broke and a leaf that smelled like Kashyyk fell out, together with a flimsiplast copy of an Imperial Flight Academy application essay. 

Ben had not been allowed to look in the book.

On what had felt like the most terrible day of his life, when his mother’s face and his face and Darth Vader’s face had been jumbled together on every holonews station from the Core to the Mid Rim, Luke had appeared in his room just before midnight and pressed the book into his hand solemnly.

“So now that I know the truth, I’m allowed to read your family scrapbook,” Ben had spat viciously. “Just not when it would have done any good.” He’d chucked it across the room with the Force to punctuate his point. 

“I’m not going to say we should have told you sooner,” Luke had said, picking it up carefully. “You’re not my son, Ben. You’re Leia and Han’s son, and it was up to your parents to decide what to tell you and when.”

“They did a good job, clearly.”

Luke had shrugged mildly. “You still have both hands and you haven’t tried to jump off anything yet. So it’s definitely an improvement over my reaction.” He’d held out the book. “Take it.”

“I don’t want your book,” Ben remembered saying. “I don’t want to know more about Darth Vader. I know plenty already.”

“It’s not my book,” Luke had replied, equably. “I made it for you, Ben, even before you were born, and I left pages for you to use after I’m gone. I was never going to have children of my own, for a variety of reasons that I’m pretty sure you don’t care to hear about right now—anyway, listen to me.”

“I’m not going to.”

“My aunt and uncle should have changed my name, when I was younger, like the Organas changed your mother’s. But they didn’t. They didn’t do that, because they knew that in slave families, the only thing you own is your name. By carrying your name, even when you’re sold, you carry with you the names of everyone who came before you. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you, Ben?”

“No,” Ben had said. “And it doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter.” Luke’s eyes had drilled into Ben’s. “You don’t carry his name, Ben, and I wouldn’t want you to. But it matters to me that you know who came before you. You have a lot of expectation to live up to, and I’m not going to pretend that I know what that’s like. But some of the people in here did, I think. You can know them. I want you to know about Naboo and Alderaan and Kashyyk and Corellia and the old Temple. I want to be able to tell you about Obi-Wan, Ben. And I made this for you, so that if you wanted to know more, you could, because I care about you.”

“Get out,” Ben had said, icily. He remembered, distinctly, the hollow feeling in his chest, as if he had been hurt so much that day that nothing was left of him but his empty skin. “I don’t care what you want. If you wanted me to know, you could have told me. You, more than anyone else, should have told me.”

“Why is that?” Luke had said, his face suddenly shuttered.

“Because you found out the wrong way, too!” Ben had yelled the words so suddenly and loudly that even Luke, with his preternatural calm, had flinched. “You dream about it still, sometimes. I used to wake up here and wonder why you were calling for me, Uncle. Then I realized you weren’t. You were calling for him. Ben Kenobi, the man who lived and died lying to you.”

“Ben,” Luke had warned, “please don’t make this about me. I understand that you’re hurting, but—”

“Exactly!” Ben had snarled. “You understand that I’m hurting, because you hurt the exact same way! How could you do this to me? They didn’t know what this would be like, but you did! And you let it happen!”

“Ben, let me explain,” Luke had said, “Leia wanted—”

“I don’t kriffing care what Mom wanted!” Improbably, Ben had found that he was crying, again. “You may have forgiven Ben Kenobi, but I will never forgive you. If I write a book like this, I will write that you did this to me, _knowing_ what it would be like. You don’t deserve to have students, Luke. You chose to do this to me, back before I was even born.” 

“Ben, I didn’t say I needed you to forgive me. But I wanted you to know— _please_ listen, Ben—you _have_ to know how sorry I am about all of it.” And Luke had walked out, leaving the book behind him.

“You’re not sorry, though!” Ben had yelled after him, his throat raw. “Because I know that you’d do it all over again!”

He had skimmed the book, briefly, in a moment of weakness a week later. Then he’d torn half the pages out with the Force and thrown it under his bed. It had been destroyed with the Temple.

* * *

Siri Tachi moved quickly, as it turned out. Within six hours, the front desk of the hotel called their room to say that an unmarked courier droid had brought a package for them. Inside the package was a surprisingly varied set of fake ID’s and credentials—interplanetary travel permits, speeder operator licenses, and even Service Corps badges, which would probably come in handy if they were caught using the Force. There were also several changes of clothes complete with hidden lightsaber pockets, the promised encrypted commset, and, most usefully, a holochip that displayed a list of relatively mindtrick-susceptible shipowners, organized by vehicle type.

They waited until after sunset to go down to the docking district. Kylo had expected more of a fight over who got to drive their rented airspeeder, but Rey had hopped into the copilot seat without protesting. To be fair, she was fresh off a hard-won victory over attire. Kylo still maintained (despite the results of the Rock, Flimsi, Vibroblade match) that hoods were a simple, incredibly effective disguise, and anyone who thought that they made the wearer automatically look suspicious was clearly unused to undercover work.

“I think you should stay with the speeder while I get the ship,” he told her as their vehicle inched through a tunnel. “We might need a getaway, and you’re better at disregarding the basic laws of traffic.”

She shrugged. “Never too late to start disregarding,” she pointed out.

“You’re right,” he said, slamming down on the speeder’s siren in frustration. Around them, the entire tunnel erupted in earsplitting beeping as twelve other speeders decided to siren their neighbors. “But offworld transporters have their own culture, practically speaking, and I think I have a better shot at fitting in well enough to get us a good price. That way, we don’t have to mindtrick anyone, except as a last resort.”

“Okay,” Rey said. “But if we’re relying on your interpersonal skills, I’ll be ready for a very fast getaway, just in case.”

“I led an empire,” he reminded her. “I’m capable of talking to people.”

Their ship of choice was a lightweight, inconspicuous passenger shuttle with decent, if battered, shielding and a single gun turret. The owner, a Duros male named Lor Traad, was sitting on the loading ramp, clutching a half-full bottle of what appeared to be Chandrilan wine.

“Traveler!” Kylo called jovially as he jogged over. Spacers jogged, he was sure of it. Although when his father jogged, that meant something bad was chasing him, and the whole point was to appear nonchalant. He switched back to walking, mid-stride, and added a cocky shake of his shoulders to cover the stumble, as if he was wearing one of Lando Calrissian’s capes.

“Why are you yelling at me? Do I know you?” Traad asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Not yet you don’t,” said Kylo, with a charming wink. Then he realized that he had utterly forgotten to come up with a backstory, or even a plausible reason why he and Rey needed transport to Tatooine. “You see,” he said, and paused. He really should have planned this ahead of time. “I have a sister.”

“Impressive,” said Traad. He took a swig of wine, sighed deeply, and wiped his mouth. “I don’t care.”

“You do, though,” said Kylo, swallowing his unease. “Let me tell you why. See, my baby sister and I are your typical offworld transporter types. New port every day. We’re the sort of emotionally stunted beings who prefer our ship to our spouses and our blasters to our beds—you know, you get it.”

“I really don’t,” said Traad. “I don’t think you get it, either.”

“We need to go to Tatooine,” said Kylo. “Leaving tonight. And we were hoping you could help us out, as a fellow hardened transporter, who understands our lifestyle.” He winked again, for good measure.

Traad hummed interestedly. “The Outer Rim? That’s going to cost you.”

“We have credits,” said Kylo quickly. “Lots of credits. From betting on my sister. She’s really good at—” He drew himself up short and tried to remember things Rey was good at that existed in this time period. “Droid repair,” he finished lamely.

“You bet on droid repair?” Traad asked. 

“Yes,” said Kylo. “Do you have a problem with that? She tears off arms when she gets upset, so you had better not have a problem.”

“Is your sister a Wookiee?” said Traad. 

“No,” said Kylo. “She is a perfectly normal human.”

Traad narrowed his eyes. “What’s her name?”

“Phasma,” Kylo said quickly. “Phasma Organa.”

“Your sister is related to the ruling family of Alderaan?” 

“No,” said Kylo, trying to lean arrogantly against a pillar in a way that displayed his blaster without making it seem like he was trying to display his blaster. “The names sound the same but they’re spelled completely different.”

“I see,” said Lor Traad. “And what’s your name?” 

“Hux. I mean, Ben. Ben Solo—Greedo.” He cleared his throat and tried to come up with an excuse for having just given four separate names. “My name is Ben but people call me Hux, and my last name is Sologreedo, because I’m so greedy that I travel through life alone.”

“I thought you traveled with your sister.”

“Alone except for my sister,” Kylo amended. 

“Who has a different last name.”

“I changed mine when I got married,” he offered. “My wife’s from Bespin. They do things differently there.”

“Clearly,” said Lor Traad. “What happened to your ship?”

“Pardon me?” 

“Why can’t you take your own ship to Tatooine?”

“It’s in Republic impound,” said Kylo. “We’d pay to get it out with the credits I made betting on Phasma’s...droid repair, but the Republic won’t let us buy it back. It’s too famous. You may have heard of it. The Millennium...” He trailed off and tried to remember major types of avians. “Porg,” he finished.

“Can’t say I’m aware of the Millenium Porg,” Traad said. “Why are you and your sister going to Tatooine, Ben Hux Sologreedo?”

“Because,” said Kylo, desperately striving to stay in character, while also aware that he was rambling nigh-incoherently, “my son is there. He was kidnapped by Tusken Raiders, and I’m a cocky spacer who’s too busy being cool to settle down, so I only care about him when his life is in danger, which it often is. Anyway, he’s gotten himself kidnapped again—you know kids, they’re stupid that way, especially with all those cults after them saying they’re the reincarnation of Darkness in the Galaxy, you know?”

“What?” said Lor Traad. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying. Why do the Tusken Raiders care about the reincarnation of Darkness in the Galaxy? Doesn’t your kid live with his mom?”

“My son’s name is Lando!” Kylo said, apropos of nothing. He suddenly realized that he was yelling, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. “He ran away to Tatooine because his mom’s never around! He’s going to grow up wondering why nobody ever gave a shit about him unless things were going wrong. I care about everyone but him, even though I pretend not to care, because I’m a dashing smuggler who can’t ever settle down. You know why I don’t care about him? It’s because I’m too busy being scared for him. Later on I’ll probably pretend I cared all along, wouldn’t that be fun, just to twist the knife in one more time—probably because she told me to. She just knew offering him love at the last minute would make everything so much worse. Except sorry doesn’t fix shit! Did you know that?” He paused for breath and realized that the entire docking bay was watching. “Yeah, that’s right, guys. Stare away! You can be sorry about it later—except maybe you’re not really, it’s just other people playing tug-the-bantha with your memories—anyway, you think you’re sorry, because everyone wants you to be. She made him make damn sure you would be.” A family of Mirialans hurried by, the parents covering ther children’s ears protectively. “You know,” he continued, knowing he might as well just say it all, since the damage was already done, “some little part of me has to wonder, deep down, if she knew what would happen. I know damn well she read that stupid kriffing leather book, and every single person who goes out to do the “there’s good in you routine” dies—well, except one—so maybe she sent someone who’d hang around a bit in my brain, after I killed them.”

“I’m sorry, what?” said Traad. “Did you look too long into hyperspace or something?”

This was officially no longer salvageable. “You will give me and my associate free transport to Tatooine and forget any irregularities in this conversation,” Kylo snarled, lacing his words with the Dark Side.

“I will give you and your associate free transport to Tatooine and forget any irregularities in this conversation,” Traad repeated, his eyes glazing over.

“Wait, did you just mindtrick him?” an onlooker yelled.

“ALL of you will forget that I was here!” he added, releasing a wave of Dark energy strong enough to mindtrick the onlookers. 

“ALL of us will forget that you were here,” the crowd chorused.

“You will let me go, unhindered, and return to your business,” Kylo said, tugging his civilian jacket tighter around him and ducking out towards the speeder lot as the onlookers repeated his words.

“Are you alright?” Rey asked. “That took a while.”

“We should get out of here,” said Kylo, strapping himself in hurriedly. “I told them to forget me, but we should leave in case anyone there was mindtrick-resistant. It became more of a spectacle than I intended.”

Rey started the speeder, smiling broadly to herself. He was definitely going to face a round of interrogation about this later. “So I take it I should disregard the basic laws of—hold on. Ben, do you see that?” She pointed over his head at an apartment complex several levels up.

He squinted to read the sign. “The Republica Building?”

“The man!” Rey said, jamming the speeder into drive with shaking hands. 

Kylo looked up. Sure enough, a dark shadow had leaped off one of the apartment’s balconies and was plummeting straight towards their speeder. “Rey, if you don’t accelerate, we’re going to hit him,” Kylo said.

She glared at him viciously. “I know that!” she said. “It’s not my fault that the speeder is an ancient piece of junk.”

“Maybe if you focused on driving it, it would go faster,” he snapped. “Or, alternately, we could just squash him.”

“There’s something wrong,” said Rey. “It isn’t responding to me—oh, _blast!”_

Suddenly, as if steered by an invisible hand, the speeder jerked to a halt. Then it careened backwards, twisted to the side, nearly barreled into a wall, spun back around, and rushed forward. It stopped mere feet away from a hooded, dark figure in the middle of the street. Its hand was outstretched in classic Force-user fashion, and as the speeder stopped, the figure reached down and ignited a blue lightsaber.

In the seat next to him, Rey had already undone her seat fastenings, ready for a fight. _Don’t,_ he sent through the Force, hoping she’d hear him. _We can’t afford a scene._

“I have them trapped, Master,” the figure murmured into a wrist comm. Then he leaped up onto the hood of the speeder, lightsaber ablaze. “Out of the vehicle, Darkside scum,” Anakin Skywalker spat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Anakin...
> 
> Next time: prequel character POV’s, lightsaber fights, and Kylo angst!
> 
> Thanks for reading!You guys make my week better!
> 
> <3<3<3 Liv


	5. Chapter 5

“I’m sorry,” said Rey, her tone dripping with sweetness. She stepped carefully out of the speeder and closed the door behind her. “I think you must be mistaken, Padawan. My brother and I were just going back to our hotel for the night. We’re not Dark Side users.”

“Your brother literally just used the Dark Side,” Anakin Skywalker retorted. “I just felt him do it, on a city-block-wide scale.”

“My brother,” Rey shot back, “is an honest, hardworking trader, who was here tonight to check on a delayed shipment.” 

“Okay,” said Anakin. He grinned wolfishly. “We’ll do this the fun way, then. I’m going to count to three, and you’re going to tell me what was in the shipment. If you’re not lying, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

_Sithspit_ , Rey thought. Kylo snorted in amusement. _Coaxium might be slightly more convincing,_ she heard him say through the bond.

“I just felt you use it again,” Anakin said. His grip on his saber tightened. “Neither of you are subtle.”

_I’ll hold him off,_ she thought. _When I ignite my saber, run for it. They can’t prove that I used the Dark Side._ Out loud, she said, “You can’t just take people into custody on the basis of a feeling.”

“No,” said Anakin grimly. “But I can take a Darksider and his associate into custody on suspicion of an assassination attempt against a planetary Senator.”

“What?” said Rey.

_He’s a much better duelist than either of us,_ Kylo murmured in her mind. _And this time’s Obi-Wan is definitely on the way to assist Skywalker. You don’t stand a fraction of a chance._

_It’s basic logic,_ Rey pointed out. _We’re not both getting away right now. So either both of us get taken in, you get taken in, or I get taken in. One of those options is significantly better than the others. They probably think you’re the second Sith Lord, or at least that you know who he is, whereas I can get away with playing ignorant untrained Light-user._

_I do know who the second Sith Lord is,_ Kylo pointed out wryly. _But I thought we weren’t trying to create a galaxy-destroying paradox._

“Is either of you even listening to me?” Anakin snapped. “Someone’s trying to kill an important planetary Senator to influence a military bill. So it seems awfully coincidental to me that I found two unregistered Force-users mind-tricking an entire city block, less than fifty feet away from that Senator’s primary residence!”

“Wait, what Senator?” Kylo demanded.

“Classified,” said Anakin. “Now, my master doesn’t like me attacking people without good reason, so I’ll give you one chance. Both of you explain what you were doing, convincingly, and I’ll only arrest him for using the Dark Side.”

“I told you,” said Rey stubbornly. “My brother and I are traders, checking up on a delayed coaxium shipment. We don’t follow galactic politics, and we don’t know anything about Senatorial assassinations.”

“You’ve both used the Force multiple times during this conversation,” Anakin said. “This whole ‘we’re innocent Force-null traders’ routine is not going to work.”

“I never said Force-null,” said Rey. “Our Force sensitivity is none of your business.”

“I hate to keep beating a dead tauntaun, but your brother used the Dark Side on an entire city block,” Anakin said pointedly. “That makes your Force sensitivity very much my business, and even more the Jedi Council’s business.”

“Fine,” snapped Kylo. “We were tested when we were younger, but our parents chose not to give us to the Temple. Is that enough of an explanation for you?”

“That’ll work,” said Anakin. “Luckily for both of you, the Temple keeps a record of everyone it finds to be Force-sensitive. Your sister should be clear to leave in under an hour. Unless, of course, you’re both still lying, even after I warned you not to, repeatedly. That would be incredibly stupid of you, and the consequences would be severe. Clear?”

“What about my brother?” said Rey.

“That’s up to the Jedi Council,” said Anakin. 

Rey took a deep breath and reviewed her options. Surrender, miss their transport offworld, risk Kylo being imprisoned, and face interrogation when their lie was discovered. Or fight, possibly get arrested herself, and make them both high-profile fugitives.

_Don’t be rash, Rey,_ said a Coruscanti-accented voice in her head. She blinked. _Run. Please_ , Obi-Wan’s voice urged. _Rash actions lead to ruin, and there is so much riding on this. Kylo’s already jeopardized enough tonight._

_I’m sorry,_ she told the voice. _But I have to do what I think is right._ She ignited her saber. 

Anakin’s eyes widened very slightly. Then his face hardened. “You’re a good liar,” he said slowly. “I almost believed you. Tell me, where’d you get that?”

“In a chest in a cantina basement,” Rey said grimly. Beside her, Kylo was reaching into his jacket. _Run!_ she yelled at him through the bond. _Ben, pulling out a bright red crossguard saber is not going to help de-escalate this situation._

He caught her eyes stubbornly, and drew his blaster from its holster in his jacket.

“Okay,” said Anakin. His eyes glinted savagely. “You two want to fight? Let’s fight. I enjoy inflicting extreme bodily injury on people who lie to me, so this is actually going to be very fun for me.”

He deflected two blaster bolts with a casual flick of his saber and charged at Rey with a whirling, downwards stab to her shoulder. She dodged, barely, and the saber singed the corner of her sleeve. Anakin pressed the advance in a dizzying flash of saberwork too fast to track. Rey braced herself and brought her blade up to block her neck from a sickening-looking swing. He bore down relentlessly, using his height and weight against her, bending her backward. 

Rey had spent most of her life fighting men twice her size. She let her grip on her saber weaken pointedly, just enough to distract him, then kneed him viciously in the stomach.

Anakin dropped back, coughing, but he managed to knock her lightsaber away in the process. She pulled it back to her with the Force.

It didn’t come.

Everything froze for a moment. Rey tripled her efforts. Anakin, bent over nearly double by the side of the road, stared at the saber as if he had seen it before somewhere, but couldn’t remember where. 

Then, slowly, he put out his left hand and furrowed his brow. The saber twitched on the ground. 

Rey scrambled back. Her heart was pounding in her inner ears. She needed to put distance between herself and Anakin. The speeder was close nearby, and she and Kylo could make it inside and shut the door. Even if the speeder didn’t move, it would make it harder to get to them.

The lightsaber sailed into Anakin’s hand. He stared at it, uncomprehending, his eyes glazing over. “I don’t—” he said. His eyes widened. “No,” he whispered. 

Then a blaster bolt hit his shoulder, straight on. Another one clipped his knee. He fell against the wall, breathing hard, his face contorted into a snarl of pain. 

“Run!” yelled Kylo beside her. “I’ll cover you and meet you at the rendezvous point!” _Our hotel_ , he said in the bond.

Rey turned and met his wide, battle-frenzied eyes. “No,” she said.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Kylo snapped. “I’m covering you, now run!”

“No,” Rey said, again. “You were right. If we stay together, we’ll survive together.” 

She reached out, grabbed his free hand, and pulled him along with her.

* * *

Sometimes, Obi-Wan wondered what he had done in life to deserve an apprentice who was so reckless of bodily injury that he had his own bed reserved in the Healer’s Halls.

That was nonsense, of course, on two levels. The first level was that he knew exactly what sequence of events had led to him being assigned such a foolhardy, tempestuous, risk-seeking apprentice, so speculating about it was pointless. It was done, now, and all he could do was to try to do right by Qui-Gon’s memory.

The second level was that Obi-Wan knew he wouldn’t have traded Anakin for Ferus Olin and Aayla Secura put together, even if such a combined being had the wisdom of Master Yoda to boot. Not that he’d ever tell Anakin such a thing. It would go to his head.

Anakin twitched unhappily in the bed, one hand clutching at the blanket as if he feared it being ripped from him. His face was pale and unaccountably childish.

“Mom?” he murmured.

“Not quite,” said Obi-Wan softly. “Are you awake?”

“Stay away,” Anakin muttered.

“You’re having a nightmare,” Obi-Wan said. This was why he shouldn’t have turned a blind eye when Anakin skipped Senior Padawan Meditation 602 last week. “I’m going to try to wake you up now.” He reached out and shook his Padawan’s shoulder. 

Anakin woke with a jolt. “Master. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not under your control,” Obi-Wan said. This wasn’t the time to talk about the nightmares, he decided. Anakin was shaken, injured, and exhausted, and he himself needed a good night’s sleep before he tried to help his Padawan rest. “What happened?”

Anakin swallowed. “There were two of them. Brother and sister, they said. They got away. Is the Senator alright?”

“She’s fine,” Obi-Wan said. “Although there was a bit of an incident after you ran off. A bounty hunter broke into the apartment building. I tried to pursue her, but I couldn’t leave the Senator unguarded. Then your emergency beacon went off, so I left our charge with her personal security forces for the moment and went to retrieve you.”

“Padmé is fine, though?” said Anakin anxiously.

“A little shaken, but fine,” Obi-Wan assured him. “Master Antana and Padawan Thel-Tanis are with her right now. She’s a formidable person.”

“She is,” said Anakin, with a surprising depth of feeling in his voice. “At least the Council won’t censure me for abandoning my post this time.”

Anakin had racked up an astonishingly large number of official reprimands in the course of his comparatively short Jedi career. “That’s up to the Council,” Obi-Wan said sternly. “But I’ll tell them that I felt the Dark Side surge too.”

“Thank you,” said Anakin, a little sulkily. 

“Next time, Anakin,” Obi-Wan added, since Anakin was too weak to escape this lecture for once, “please wait, breathe and count to five before you jump out of a window. That goes for all situations, unless you are the highest-ranking fighter in the room, in which case I suppose you can do what you like. If you hadn’t gone wildly haring off, we could have commed for reinforcements, and then I could have left you to protect Senator Naberrie and taken another trained Knight to go find the source of the surge.”

Anakin snorted. 

“What’s so funny?” said Obi-Wan.

“If I hadn’t jumped out the window, you absolutely would have jumped out yourself,” Anakin said.

He wasn’t wrong. “You should have waited for my orders,” Obi-Wan said pointedly.

“Which would have been to guard the Senator, comm for reinforcements, and call the window repair company,” Anakin said, raising his eyebrow mischievously. “Or am I wrong, Master? And why didn’t you comm for reinforcements once I left?”

“You’re not wrong,” Obi-Wan admitted. Force, he was tired. Jedi could do without sleep for longer than most, but he was beginning to reach his limit. He blinked hard and reached for the Force to clear his mind. “And I didn’t comm for reinforcements because in order to get those reinforcements, I would have had to explain that my Padawan disobeyed my orders, left his post, and tried to take on two Force-users strong enough to mind-trick a city block all by himself.”

“Oh,” said Anakin. His face fell. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

Obi-Wan resisted the strong urge to ask Anakin when he intended to _learn_ to think. Instead, he moved on. “Anakin, when I found you, you had two lightsabers. How did that happen?”

Anakin’s eyebrows drew together. “I disarmed the girl. She tried to pull it back, and it wouldn’t come to her.”

“And then?” Obi-Wan prompted.

Anakin looked troubled. “I heard it, Master,” he said. “It talked to me. And when I touched it, I saw—I saw something.”

“You’re not psychometric,” said Obi-Wan. Anakin wasn’t, he had been tested. “Right?”

“I don’t think I’m psychometric,” Anakin confirmed.

Best to be sure. Obi-Wan unholstered his lightsaber from his belt and passed it to his Padawan. “Anything?”

Anakin shook his head. “Sorry, Master.” He handed the saber back.

“So it was an object-triggered Force Vision,” Obi-Wan said, rubbing his temple to try to dissipate his oncoming migraine. “Usually there’s some sort of connection in advance, though. Have you ever seen the lightsaber before? Or either of the Darksiders?”

“No,” said Anakin. “Never. And I should have mentioned—they weren’t both Darksiders.”

“What?” said Obi-Wan. He was beginning to dread his next debriefing meeting. 

“The man was clearly Dark, but if I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought the woman was one of us,” Anakin said. “Her Force signature wasn’t Dark. The saber’s blue, but she said she didn’t make it herself.”

“You think she was a rogue Jedi?” He would have to go find the security holos of the incident and run a facial recognition scan to cross-reference against the youngling sensitivity database. 

“I have no idea what she was,” said Anakin slowly. “They had a Force Bond, rather like ours, but different, somehow. I don’t know how to explain.”

“You’re explaining adequately,” said Obi-Wan. “I just don’t have any answers to give.” He paused. “Anakin, may I ask—what did you see, when you touched the saber?”

Anakin glanced away shiftily for the barest hint of a moment, then looked back. “Nothing, really,” he said. “I was back on Tatooine. There were a few glimpses of other places, but Tatooine was the only one I knew.”

“What happened on Tatooine in your vision?” Obi-Wan asked.

“I freed the others,” Anakin said softly, and Obi-Wan knew, with a sick surety, as well as he knew his own name, that his Padawan was lying.

“Anakin,” he said, “I’m going to give you the same advice that Master Qui-Gon gave me, when I had visions as an apprentice.” It hadn’t helped, but he didn’t really know any advice that would actually work. Disquieting visions were an occupational hazard of life as a Jedi, and Obi-Wan had long since given up on making peace with his. “Be in this moment with the Force. If your eyes are fixed on the horizon, you are bound to trip on your own feet.”

“Poetic,” said Anakin dryly.

Obi-Wan rose from his chair and picked the unknown lightsaber up off the bedside table. “I have to make my report to the Council soon. Is there anything else I should know?”

“No, Master,” said Anakin. “Have a good Council meeting. I know how much you enjoy their company, after all.”

He chose not to dignify that with a response.

* * *

Anakin breathed a sigh of relief as Obi-Wan left. Somehow his Master always knew when he was being lied to. He could probably tell when he was being lied to by sensing how much Anakin hated lying to him, come to think of it. 

“I want to get up,” he told the med-droid that came in to take his blood pressure. “I’m fit for duty.”

“Apologies, Padawan,” said the droid, “but you have not yet completed your medical rest quota.”

“Blast my medical rest quota,” said Anakin. “Let me up.” He rolled out of bed and made it three whole steps before the droid caught up to him.

“Sir,” said the droid, “if you do not return to bed, I will be forced to sedate you.”

Sedation would bring the dreams back.

“I have urgent Jedi business,” he bluffed. “With Senator Amidala. I have a lead on the identities of her assailants, and I need to apprise her of the latest developments.”

“You need your medical rest quota,” said the droid. “The Jedi Council has been briefed on your information and will determine next steps. I would recommend a sedative, Padawan. The recommended sleep period for your age group and activity level is nine hours.”

“Override code,” said Anakin. “436743-58227.” It was Obi-Wan’s medical override, to be used only in case of emergency. Anakin had seen it used so often that he had it memorized. Obi-Wan really hated rest quotas.

“That is Master Kenobi’s override,” said the droid. “You are not Master Kenobi.”

“I’m his Padawan,” said Anakin.

“Padawans do not have medical override codes,” said the droid. “You are a Padawan, therefore your medical override is invalid. I will freeze the code until its security is restored.”

Obi-Wan was going to hate that, but it served him right for leaving Anakin alone in the Healer’s Halls. “Okay, okay,” said Anakin. “I’ll go lie down. But if you so much as kriffing look at me with that needle, I’ll rip you into scrap and sell you to the Jawas.”

“Your distaste for medical procedure has been added to your chart, Padawan,” said the droid, sounding almost smug. Then it buzzed over to the next bed-alcove and left him alone with his thoughts.

One of the perks of having a reserved bed in the Healer’s Halls was the ability to personalize the alcove by stealing a scalpel, hollowing out a section of the wall, concealing a burner datapad in the compartment, and covering the seam with a spare face cloth and a notice-me-not.

Anakin pulled up the word processor on the datapad and tried to note down everything he had seen when he touched the girl’s saber.

The lightsaber had spoken to him, in Qui-Gon’s voice. “Anakin, trust the Force,” it had said, and he’d felt the saber humming in the back of his mind, the same way he felt his own. The two sabers were discordant together, as if they were vibrating on competing frequencies.

Then he’d touched the lightsaber, and the humming had intensified until he could feel his teeth chattering. Suddenly there was snow under his boots, and a man lying facedown before him, his back vividly slashed open. He could feel the crackling Force signatures of the Dark pair, but he couldn’t move his head to look up. The signatures felt familiar to him, had felt familiar even in real life, but he couldn’t quite place why before he was whirled into a memory of darkness and stale air, the kind that came with being locked in a box. Then came the sensation of falling, but without any wind resistance, as if someone had loosed him into the vacuum of space. The next flash was of jagged hallways converging on a menacing, circular room, and a tall, dark, figure breathing harshly. 

None of it was familiar until he saw Obi-Wan. He was old in the vision, with a white beard and a thick brown robe, and as Anakin watched, he smiled at someone Anakin couldn’t see and closed his eyes. A high, young voice screamed in sudden horror. The endless sands of Tatooine stretched before him for an instant, and then the darkness returned. This time he felt grief through the vision, almost painful in its intensity. 

The last flash of vision was of Obi-Wan, ringed by fire, looking as if his heart had split in two.

He would have to meditate, to make sense of all this. Reluctantly, Anakin put the datapad back in its compartment and lay down.

_My mind is a grate through which information passes, and I retain only the important details,_ he thought. Obi-Wan was a vocal proponent of visualization meditation.

Thinking about Obi-Wan only brought him back to the vision, to the image of his Master, an avenging angel with a face twisted by tragedy. He cleared his mind and tried again. _I fill my mind with the Force, and only the most crucial parts of my vision float to the top._ Anakin evened out his breathing. The last time he’d meditated seriously, he’d had to stop early when a vision of his mother took over his practice—

He came suddenly back to himself, breathing hard. He knew where he’d encountered those Force signatures before.

They had been there in all his most recent dreams of his mother dying.

* * *

“We kriffed up,” panted Rey. 

“What makes you think that?” Kylo asked, slowing to a jog. “At least we’ve lost them now. Left here into the alley.”

He was a better runner than her, which was aggravating. It made sense that he would be—he was significantly taller, and he hadn’t spent most of his life malnourished and dehydrated. They’d been running for what felt like several hours, and even calling on the Force to reinforce her strength, she was ready to drop. He was visibly sweating, but his stride was still firm and even, and he probably wouldn’t even get shin splints from this, the lucky idiot.

“We’ve also lost our best weapon, our cover, and any chance of getting to Tatooine,” she said. 

“Fair,” said Kylo. “I have our papers from Siri in my pocket, so at least we’re still covered there.”

Rey’s stomach sank. “Siri doesn’t know you use the Dark Side,” she said. “But Anakin’s going to go back to the Temple with our descriptions, and she’ll put it together.”

Kylo’s presence in the Force crackled with bitter frustration. “Ordinarily I’d say that we sneak back in and kill him before he talks, but…” He indicated himself. “Grandfather paradox. Literally. I’d rather continue existing.”

“You’re a terrible descendant,” said a voice distinctly. Rey stopped in her tracks.

“What was that?” she said. 

Ahead of her, Kylo had also stopped running. He jogged back. “Hello, Grandfather. Nice of you to show up in person now that you need something. Did you know that I’ve spent much of my life so far failing to get in touch with you? This is my friend, Rey, who you threatened to kill the last time we spoke. Rey, this is my grandfather.”

He gestured to a patch of air in front of them.

Rey squinted. It looked like an ordinary patch of air.

“Maybe if you view him through our connection?” Kylo suggested awkwardly.

“No, wait,” said the voice, oddly gleeful. “I’ve wanted to try this ever since I died. _Use the Force, Rey,”_ it intoned.

_He isn’t going to kill us right now, right?_ Rey asked Kylo over their bond. _I’m too tired to get killed by a Force Ghost today._

He sent her back the vague mental image of a shrug. _Guess we’ll find out._

She called a web of energy to her and closed her eyes. _The Force is a glass through which I can see,_ she thought, and opened them.

The misty blue outline of Anakin Skywalker was leaning against the wall of the alley with his hands tucked carelessly into the pockets of his robe. Next to him was Obi-Wan, looking even more exhausted than the last time she had seen him.

“Hi, Rey,” said Anakin. “I see you’ve already met your Grandmaster. I’m the black sheep of the family.”

“What do you want?” Kylo snapped. “I’m doing what you told me to.”

“You’re doing a terrible job,” said Anakin bluntly. “Even I wouldn’t have been dumb enough to mindtrick a city block, and that’s a low bar. Do you have any idea of the worry you put me through?”

Obi-Wan snickered distinctly. Anakin whirled around. “Something to say, Obi-Wan?”

Obi-Wan’s sabacc face was a masterpiece. “Nothing at all, Anakin. Carry on.” He winked at Rey and Kylo exaggeratedly as soon as Anakin’s back was turned.

“As I was saying before—okay, Obi-Wan, you clearly have a sarcastic quip locked and loaded. Spit it out.”

Obi-Wan smirked. “I was merely reflecting to myself that you seem to have acquired a better understanding of my role in our relationship.”

Anakin’s Force Ghost punched his shoulder. 

“That didn’t hurt,” said Obi-Wan placidly. 

Anakin ignored him. “I can’t believe this needs saying,” he said to Kylo and Rey, “which is why I didn’t say it before. You are going on a mission to save me from my worst impulses.” 

“We know,” said Rey. “So?”

“So _don’t give in to the exact same impulses_ ,” said Anakin, over-enunciating as if she were a particularly dull child. “Obi-Wan, are you planning on backing me up on this anytime in the next millennium?”

“Why should I,” said Obi-Wan calmly, “when you’re doing such a tremendous job already?”

“It was an accident,” said Rey defensively. “The whole situation got out of hand.”

Anakin ran his fingers messily through his hair. “Out of hand. Right. You brought down the entire Jedi Order on yourselves, but at least it was an _accident_ —Force, Luke said you’d be mitigating influences on each other, not a kriffing feedback loop!”

“To be fair to Luke,” Obi-Wan said with wry amusement, “he wasn’t present when they took on an entire room full of Praetorian Guards, despite having never fought as a team before. I seem to recall some very risky aerial saber maneuvers.”

“This is pointless,” Kylo growled. “You don’t have any useful information, and we’re not just going to stand here and be insulted.”

“Anakin,” said Obi-Wan firmly, “told me he had a reason for coming here that didn’t involve verbal harassment. A reason that he’s going to tell all of us now, in a way that doesn’t alienate one of his few workable connections to the real world.”

Anakin glared. “I’m on to you,” he said tersely.

“We’re very much aware,” said Kylo. Rey shot him a _shut up_ glance.

“No, you’re not getting it,” said Anakin. “I am feeling both of your Force signatures in my visions of my mother’s death. Everything I was supposed to do at this point in the timeline? That’s almost certainly not going to happen, because I can barely remember doing it anymore. I am literally obsessed with tracking the two of you down, because right now, I’m convinced that you pose a threat to my mother.”

“So if you remember being obsessed, do you remember what your next move was?” said Rey.

Anakin grimaced. “No, because I have enough anchoring me to your timeline that I’m not really him.”

“Think about it as overwriting a holovid,” Obi-Wan suggested helpfully. “You’ve only re-recorded a few seconds, so most of it’s still the original vid. It just doesn’t quite line up anymore.”

“Probably,” Anakin mused, “there’s another Force Ghost of Anakin Skywalker in this timeline that knows what happened. Unfortunately for us, I’m not him.”

“So what do we do?” Rey asked. 

“Lay low, and get off-planet fast,” said Anakin. “Get better at shielding, both of you, and learn to do a workable notice-me-not, or you’ll need to mindtrick half the Core to avoid getting recognized. Tatooine comes first, because that’s time-sensitive, but both of you need new lightsabers.”

“My lightsaber has more raw power—” Kylo began furiously.

“Your mother, father, and all three of your uncles are pilots and occasional engineers,” Anakin interrupted. “So I’m sure you know that any machine that requires two massive vent ports just to stabilize its own energy discharge is by nature inefficient. Besides, it’s incredibly distinctive. Every spaceport in the galaxy is looking for red sabers.”

“Snoke never figured out a way to get other colors.”

“Kylo,” said Obi-Wan gently. “Go to Ilum. Rey has to go anyway. Go into the caves and _try,_ before you start planning to bleed another crystal.”

Kylo scoffed, his anger spiking instantaneously. “So that’s what this is about. You Jedi are so predictable.”

“Okay, I don’t know what’s going on, but you should leave him alone,” said Rey, stepping forward. “We are putting our entire reality on the line for you.”

“It’s okay, Rey,” said Kylo bitterly. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard from you before. They just think that since I haven’t been flying into as many unprompted rages recently, I’m probably mere inches away from being Light again. You see, if I just try hard enough, I can flick a switch and be a good little Jedi like Luke.”

“I never said that,” Obi-Wan murmured. “You Skywalkers really need to work on separating the actual words I say from the implications that you choose to read into those words.”

“I chose the Dark Side,” Kylo said. Rey could feel his anger and frustration swirling around his presence in the Force. “All of you keep acting like it’s something that just happened to me, but it’s not. I decided that the Dark Side of the Force would suit my ends better than the Light.”

“You didn’t know any better,” Rey said, trying to catch his eye. He avoided her gaze. 

“I wasn’t an idiot,” he said, sounding weary. “I was a terrible Jedi. Everything I touched, I kriffed up. I kept being told I was strong in the Force, but half the time I couldn’t find it. Whenever I was able to touch it, it completely overwhelmed me. Sometimes, I didn’t come back to myself for weeks. And deep down somewhere, I always knew that my soul wasn’t good enough for the Light Side, but I never knew why. I was a liability and a disappointment, right up until the day I Fell.”

“That’s not what I heard,” said Obi-Wan. “You know they never thought of you that way.”

Kylo ignored him. “The first time I touched the Dark, it was as if I’d been trapped in a sonic shower all my life, and suddenly I saw rain for the first time.” 

Anakin inhaled sharply. “Like it wasn’t so arbitrary and pointless that you were given powers,” he said slowly. “Like this was your true birthright, and every step of this road was leading you to that first moment of Darkness.”

“Yes,” said Kylo simply.

“I’m sorry you went through that,” said Anakin.

Kylo nodded. “I’m sorry that my mistakes ended up being so similar to yours, Grandfather. But if we’re going to do this, all of you need to understand that my only utility in this situation is as a Dark Side user.”

“I won’t accept that,” said Obi-Wan stubbornly. “Just because you won’t be a Jedi doesn’t mean you have to embrace the Dark. Please don’t be naïve, Kylo.”

“I am what I made myself,” said Kylo. He drew himself up to his full height coldly. “My path in the Force is not open to negotiation, and even if it was, redeeming me won’t make you feel any less guilty. I’m not Anakin, and I’m not Luke.”

“Okay, kiddo, you’re way out of line—” Anakin began, but Obi-Wan stopped him with a look.

“I’m not trying to feel less guilty,” said Obi-Wan. “For Anakin, or for Luke. I’m trying to tell you that one of the most talented, brilliant, and sensitive Force-Users I ever knew chose not to be a Jedi. One of my closest allies in the Clone Wars fell to the Dark Side and came back. My own Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, who I loved and respected dearly, was by his own admission a terrible Jedi. If he had lived, he would almost certainly have left the Order after training Anakin.”

“Or before,” Anakin added. “He and I would really not have lasted long as Jedi together. We might have given Yoda a heart attack.”

“You are very young,” said Obi-Wan carefully, “to banish all hope from your life forever. That is all I’m trying to tell you.”

“You both need to go to Ilum anyway,” said Anakin. “So arguing about it right now is a waste of valuable time.”

“Wasting valuable time by arguing is the Jedi way,” said Obi-Wan half-chidingly.

“Then we should get moving,” said Kylo. 

Obi-Wan’s face looked sorrowful. “May the Force be with you both. Anakin or I will make contact on Tatooine to help you find Shmi.”

“No, wait!” said Rey. “Anakin, you need to explain this list to us.”

“No, I don’t,” said Anakin. He grinned. “I’m dead. I don’t need to do anything I don’t want to do.”

“If you want us to follow your plan for bringing you back to the Light, you should make it clear what that plan is,” Rey said belligerently. “I know more about how to bring Ben back to the Light than I do you.”

Anakin cackled. “Interesting. And kind of cute.”

“What?” said Kylo defensively. “She’s right. Not that she’d succeed, but she is right.”

“Never mind,” said Anakin. “Did you ever consider that I don’t want you two trying to work ahead? You’re about to save my mother from dying in my arms, and an entire tribe of indigenous Tatooinians from being slaughtered in revenge.”

“We know that,” said Kylo. “That doesn’t have anything to do with the current situation.”

“Yes it does,” said Anakin with exaggerated patience. “Because after that happens, half the things on the list may not happen anymore. So I don’t want you two to waste your time following careful, detailed instructions to keep Ferus Olin from leaving the Order—”

Rey and Kylo locked eyes. “That must have been traumatic for you,” Kylo began sympathetically, at the same time as Rey said, “ _Interesting_. Why don’t you tell us all about that?”

“Oh, blast. Forget you heard me say anything,” said Anakin hurriedly. “My point is that if something’s going to happen, the information I’ve given you should be enough for you to connect things in the timeline to items on the list, realize that whatever’s happening is about to go drastically wrong, and make plans to fix it. Or, if something’s averted by a change in the timeline, its entry on the list will just never make sense to you. But if you follow exact instructions for averting something that wasn’t even going to happen, you’ll only throw off the timeline further, and draw extra attention to yourselves. Not that you need help doing that.”

Obi-Wan looked pale, even for a Force Ghost. “Anakin, you didn’t tell me that this was your plan. You have to give them more information. This is a terrible plan,” he said urgently. 

“Don’t talk to me about terrible plans,” said Anakin, “or I’ll tell them about one of yours. Do you really want to lecture me on transparency, Master ‘true-from-a-certain-point-of-view’?”

“So you’re not going to explain anything to us?” Rey asked, before Obi-Wan could deliver an appropriately biting reply. 

“I’m not,” said Anakin. “Go to Tatooine first, then Ilum once you’re done. Make it snappy, because past me is a mess right now, which could easily move Geonosis up in the timeline. If you need more help, I’ll give it to you.”

_Or just show up and harangue us after the fact,_ Rey sent Kylo over the bond. He smiled.

“Glad to see you’re both taking this situation seriously,” said Anakin. “Kriffing younglings, both of you.”

“What he means to say,” said Obi-Wan, “is ‘Good luck, and may the Force be with you’.”

Their hazy outlines dissolved.

“Tatooine?” said Kylo.

“Tatooine,” Rey agreed. “And we should train on the ship. Practice using the bond to work together, instead of blocking it out.”

“Risky aerial saber maneuvers, I hope,” said Kylo dryly. “I’m not in the mood for joint meditation.”

She shrugged. “It’ll annoy the Force Ghosts.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t lie to me, Rey. You are absolutely itching to annoy the Force Ghosts.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anakin’s override code spells out GEORGE LUCAS in the letter to number conversion on my phone’s lock screen, because why not??
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and commenting!! I’m having a ton of fun and I hope you are as well!
> 
> Next time: shit begins to go down. Anakin and Padmé are tooth-rottingly saccharine, Obi-Wan plays detective, and Kylo and Rey hash out some things.
> 
> Till next week!  
> -Liv


	6. Chapter 6

The first thing Anakin did upon being released from the Healer’s Halls was to check that Obi-Wan was still tied up in the Jedi Council session. He was, of course. Nine hours would be a record-speed Council meeting, and there was at least one Sith involved. It would be another three hours or so, at least.

Once he was safely back in their Master-Padawan quarters, he found his private audio-comm in his room, which was about as easy as searching for a japor snippet in a garbage compactor. Then, comm safely in hand, he dialed the newest identification in his address book.

She picked up immediately, and the sound of her voice relaxed something in his chest that he hadn’t even realized was tense. “Anakin! I was so worried. Are you alright?”

“Not until now,” he said, feeling foolish the instant the words left his mouth. She laughed, sweetly. 

“Well, you should recover quickly,” she said. “I need my best bodyguard.”

“You don’t mean that,” he said, secretly hoping she did.

“You Jedi should teach my senatorial colleagues lessons in humility,” said Padmé. “Now, what is it you wanted to talk about?”

“Maybe I just wanted to hear your voice,” said Anakin, smiling despite himself. “It’s much more beautiful than the med-droid’s.”

“Liar. I don’t hear a word from you for ten years, and now you’re comming me over dinner and complimenting my voice. What’s this about, Ani?”

“I need a favor,” he said. “But it’s the sort of favor where doing it might actually also help you. Does that make sense?”

“I don’t think I follow you,” said Padmé. “Can you tell me what the favor is?”

“Who’s on your current security detail?” Anakin asked instead.

“They just switched out with Master Antana and Padawan Thel-Tanis, and they’re being shown around right now, so I don’t know their names yet. Short blonde humanoid Master with a light purple saberstaff. Her Padawan’s about your age. Serious kid, gold streak to his hair.”

“That’s Tachi and Olin,” said Anakin. “Don’t freak out, but Tachi’s already figured out seven different ways to kill you, and Olin’s halfway through a list of things he’s better than you at.”

“I’m sure they’ll be good at their job,” said Padmé mildly.

“You just used your diplomat voice, milady. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you’d like the Jedi Order out of your life.”

Padmé sighed. “I’m not disagreeing, but the Chancellor was clear. I need a detail until the assassin is caught.”

“I know where the people who attacked you are,” said Anakin. “But you can’t tell Tachi and Olin. They won’t understand.”

“Does the Council know?” said Padmé. Her voice was concerned. 

“They know who, but I only just figured out where,” said Anakin. “But we need to act fast, and the Council takes days to clear this sort of thing. By the time they send someone, your attackers will already be gone.”

“What are you suggesting?” Padmé asked, and Anakin knew he’d interested her.

“Ditch Olin and Tachi. The smaller we keep this, the better. Leave a transmission saying that you’ve been called urgently back to Naboo, and transfer your duties here to someone you trust implicitly. Send a handmaiden back to Naboo, and meet me in the docking district. I’ll take you to their location. If you’re there, they won’t be able to resist making a move, and I can overpower them now that I know their weaknesses. Then they’re out of the picture, and you get to go back to whatever Senators do when they’re not foiling assassination plots. Sound good?” It was a good plan, even if Obi-Wan would never have approved it.

“You’ll get in trouble, Ani,” Padmé protested. “Keeping me safe isn’t worth jeopardizing your future as a Jedi.”

“Do you hear yourself?” said Anakin indignantly. “This is your life, milady. That’s worth more than anyone’s career. Do you want to live?”

“I’m alive right now,” Padmé pointed out. “I trust you and your fellow Jedi to keep me that way until we can capture the people who are after me.” She lowered her voice for a moment, and it felt as if she was speaking directly to him, Padmé to Anakin, not Senator to Jedi. “I promise you, Ani, on my word of honor, I’ll be safe. It’ll all be over soon. Now please, stop worrying about me and get some rest.”

His heart thumped. She couldn’t hang up. If she hung up, it was all over. Anakin took a deep, wheezing breath. “Wait!” he said. “Don’t leave me!”

“Are you alright, Ani?” said Padmé. 

“No,” he admitted. “I’m not. I’ve been having nightmares, and I think they’re about to come true.” His voice sounded dangerously unsteady in his own ears.

“You think the assassins are going to attack you, now that you’ve found them out?” 

“Worse,” said Anakin. “I know—look, I can’t really explain rationally, but the Force is telling me. They’re going to kill my mother, unless we stop them. You have to understand, I’m not unduly attached, but I can’t let them hurt her when I know I can stop it. But to save her life, I need you. I’m begging you, Padmé. If not for me, then for my mother.” He could feel tears building behind his eyes, and he blinked furiously.

There was a long silence, during which Anakin felt as if his heart might explode in his throat like a thermal detonator.

“What time do you want to leave?” Padmé said quietly.

* * *

To say that the voyage over to Tatooine was awkward would be an understatement. In hindsight, Rey really, really, really shouldn’t have spent the first half of the voyage slicing into Coruscant Central Security holovids to see what, exactly, had caused Kylo to mindtrick a city block. She justified her curiosity by wiping the video so thoroughly that the Jedi Council would have to time-travel themselves to get a look at it. Then, because she was feeling spiteful and not particularly discreet, she replaced the data gap where the file had been with high-resolution video of a domesticated baby nexu eating a Corellian-style hotcake. Let the Council debate the meaning of  _ that.  _

“I should rip your arms off,” she announced to Kylo.

He twitched unhappily in the seat next to her. “You saw it, then. I was wondering how I was going to explain why I introduced you as ‘Phasma’.” 

“The Millennium  _ Porg _ ,” she deadpanned. “How is your son Lando doing,  _ Ben Hux Sologreedo? _ ”

“Before you rip my arms off,” said Kylo, “you should know that I bought food for the trip, and I won’t share if I’m bleeding out from my shoulder sockets.”

“You won’t be able to stop me if you’re bleeding out from your shoulder sockets,” Rey pointed out.

“Rey, I’m sorry,” Kylo snapped. “I’m so, so sorry that I’m not as not as blindingly charming as your Resistance friends. It was a stressful situation, and I doubt you could have done better.”

“ _ I led an empire, Rey, I’m capable of talking to people,”  _ she imitated.  _ “Stay with the ship and disregard traffic laws, Rey, I know all about transporter culture. My utter idiocy is going to cost you your saber and get the entire Jedi Order looking for us, but at least I got to air my family issues to a city block full of smugglers with better things to do than listen to my life story!” _

“Will you talk a bit louder?” Kylo snarled. “I don’t think our pilot has heard us arguing yet.”

“Well, he’s heard a hell of a lot about you, so I doubt the arguing will be too surprising,” said Rey. “I lost my saber because of your idiocy. We’re wanted fugitives now.”

“We’re wanted fugitives now because you tried to take on Darth Vader alone, using his own lightsaber,” said Kylo. “That particular idiocy was all yours. And if you want to train so badly, you can borrow my saber until we get to Ilum.”

“I appreciate the offer, but no thanks,” said Rey. “First of all, that doesn’t make up for what you did. Secondly, it’s heavier than my old one, and I don’t want to throw off my form. How much longer are we going to be stuck in hyperspace together?”

Kylo glanced at the ship’s chronometer. “Depending on the hyperdrive class, anywhere from six to nine more hours.”

Rey stuck out her hand for the food. “I’m still very angry with you,” she warned. “And I do all the talking to people from now on.”

“Fine,” said Kylo, and handed her his saber gingerly. “Be careful with it.”

“I meant the food,” Rey admitted. 

“You’re going to do lightsaber katas on a full stomach?” said Kylo dubiously. 

“You’ve clearly never starved a day in your life,” Rey told him. “I would happily take on Palpatine and Vader with a full stomach, cramps and all.”

“You’re ridiculous,” said Kylo. “You’d lose, and then the Force Ghosts would kill me.”

* * *

Obi-Wan’s first stop after the Council meeting wrapped up was Coruscant Central Security.

He showed his Temple ID to the sergeant at the counter and asked for the Jedi Order’s usual liaison, Captain Taislui Chemm. Chemm was on leave, as it turned out, and he was instead directed to the office of Tari Kasse, a strict-looking woman who looked him over piercingly as soon as he stepped through the door, then ignored him in favor of her work.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, and I was hoping to speak to you about a crime that was committed last night.”

“Take a seat,” said Captain Kasse, without looking up. “There were twenty seven thousand crimes committed last night that we’ve discovered, and thirty three thousand the night before. So why do I have a Jedi in my office asking about just one?”

“All the Jedi need from you,” said Obi-Wan peaceably, “is twenty minutes’ access to your security video servers, and a list of any deceased from the docking, senatorial, and gambling districts last night.”

“Want,” said Captain Kasse. “The Jedi don’t need those things, the Jedi want those things. Whereas what I want is for you to stop wasting my valuable time so I can do the actual work of keeping this ridiculously large city safe.”

“I wasn’t aware of any existing animosity between the Temple and CentSec,” said Obi-Wan. 

“There is none,” said Captain Kasse. “I just don’t like it when other people swoop in to do my job, and get all the credit for keeping things in line.”

“An understandable position,” said Obi-Wan smoothly. “But this is Jedi business. I can’t say much, but there’s a decent chance that rogue Force-users are involved.” 

“Plural?”

“Plural. Now, do you want to send your men out alone to face them, or would you rather give me the information I need?”

“Fifteen minutes,” said Captain Kasse finally. “And if you go complain to my supervisor that I’m uncooperative like that blowhard Windu did last week, I will institute a policy that any Jedi who wants information from this office has to make a dent in this century’s cold-case file first.”

“I wasn’t here,” said Obi-Wan. He winked at her knowingly and headed for the video banks.

His first priority was tracking the bounty hunter he’d lost, so he pulled up the Republica Building’s closest traffic-cam and found her speeder as it careened away from the building. He followed her progress, switching cameras to track her, until she reached the Outlander Club, in the gambling district, where she ducked into an alley. She never came out. 

He pulled up every camera in the vicinity of the alley, starting ten minutes before, and watched them all at once on quick playback. No one in, no one out. He watched them again. Nothing. He watched a third time, this time on reverse, and paused the video to find footage of the two suspected Darksiders’ escape route from the saber duel with Anakin.

There they were, on foot, taking a winding route away. He set the computer to scan for them in the subsequent footage and trace their most likely path. As he returned to the central search terminal, something caught his eye in the corner of the alley footage.

The distinct outline of a boot was hovering at the very top of the screen. “Switch to the airspeeder traffic cam server for this sector,” Obi-Wan told the computer. 

There, in plain sight, was a masked figure, wearing one of the most distinctive armor types in the galaxy. Obi-Wan printed out the clearest still he could get for future reference.

The footage, such as it was, was telling. The Mandalorian-armored figure pressed a button on his helmet, as if he was taking a comm call. Then he fired a small dart gun into the alley, and left.

As Obi-Wan started to search for video evidence from the mindtricking incident, a loud knock sounded on the computer bank door.

“I have your list,” said Captain Kasse, walking in before he could invite her. 

“Oh, good,” said Obi-Wan. He scanned it briefly. “Her.”

“Zam Wessel,” Captain Kasse read aloud, “found outside the Outlander Club, dead from an unidentified dart in her neck.”

“Do me a favor,” said Obi-Wan seriously. “When your department gets around to running a toxicology scan on her, forward the results to the Jedi Temple. And in return, when I find out who her killer is, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Done,” said Kasse. “Is her killer the Mando whackjob on that screen, or that cute baby nexu on the other one?”

“What?” said Obi-Wan, whirling to check the monitor. There, on the screen he’d set to find the security records from the moment when he’d felt the Dark Side surge, was a lovingly shot video of a baby nexu snuffling down a Corellian-style hotcake. As he watched, a hand came into the frame and held out a milk bottle to the nexu. It drained the whole bottle, then licked its lips endearingly and stared at the camera as if begging for another helping. “Somebody must have sliced in and wiped the footage. This isn’t supposed to be here.”

“I got you,” said Captain Kasse. “Sliced in, totally unintentional. Jedi are way too emotionless to enjoy looking at cute animals during stressful situations. Hey, maybe I’ll play one for Windu next time he comes banging down my door asking for thirteen squadrons to investigate a mugging or whatever.”

“Do you value your life, Captain?” said Obi-Wan.

“Most days,” said Captain Kasse. “If I valued it every day, I’d be an accountant.”

“On days when you do value your life,” said Obi-Wan, “don’t play baby nexu videos for Master Windu. He won’t find it funny.”

“Not even Gungan Gymnastics Playoff videos?”

“Not even that,” Obi-Wan said, and then his comm went off. “If you’ll just excuse me for one second,” he said, and accepted the call once Kasse nodded and slipped out.

“This is Kenobi.”

Siri Tachi’s form flickered onto his holo display. “Kenobi,” she snarled. 

“Hello, Siri. Is there any particular reason why you look as if you’d like to wring my neck in front of the entire Council and half the crèchelings?”

“I don’t know,” said Siri. She was glaring hard enough to melt the holocomm. “Maybe because I’m honestly considering it. Where in the kriffing Sith hells is your kriffing Padawan?”

“Anakin?” said Obi-Wan. “He probably got off medical rest a few hours ago. He should be back in our quarters by now, studying for his Interstellar Diplomacy exam.” Clearly, that was not the case, if Siri was wondering. He sighed, trying to ignore a sudden flutter of panic in his chest. “I take it from your expression that I am incorrect in that assumption?”

“Do you know what this is?” Siri spat, holding up a small dark object.

He squinted. “An audiocomm?”

“Padmé Naberrie’s personal audiocomm,” said Siri. “No prize for guessing who she called most recently.”

“From the fact that you’re calling me about this, I’m going to suppose it’s Anakin,” said Obi-Wan wearily. “Where is Padmé?”

“Offworld. With Anakin, most likely,” said Siri. “He’s disabled all his tracking devices. She left a message for the Chancellor saying she had urgent business on Naboo. Ferus sliced into spaceport traffic control and found that one of Naberrie’s private vessels was outbound in that direction, leaving in half an hour. We dropped everything and went to intercept them, but—”

“Let me guess. It was a handmaiden,” said Obi-Wan. 

“And to top it all off, she left that kriffing Gungan in charge of her Senate seat!” Siri exploded. “I’ve spent seven years on the Senatorial assassination beat between missions. I have foiled no less than nineteen attempts on that idiotic frog’s life, more than any actual sitting Senator. Do you know why so many people want Jar-Jar Binks dead?”

“Jar-Jar is a personal friend,” said Obi-Wan defensively. “He’s not that bad.”

“People pay bounty hunters to attack your  _ personal friend _ on a monthly basis,” said Siri. “Not because he presents a political danger to them. They attack him because while he’s recuperating, he isn’t around to annoy them. And your other personal friend, the Queen of Blasted Kriffing Naboo, left  _ him _ to vote for her. So in addition to being short-handed already trying to ward off Separatist incursions, the Jedi Order is now going to need to waste at least two Master-Padawan pairs keeping half the senate from strangling that reanimated plucked chicken. Remember, this is all thanks to your Padawan and his stupid, nearsighted little crush, Kenobi, so I hope you’re happy!”

“Thrilled, thanks,” said Obi-Wan dryly. “I’m done with my work here, so I’ll go back to the Temple and see if Anakin left any indication of their destination. I have a sneaking suspicion at the moment, but it may prove to be unfounded.”

“Banthashit,” said Siri. “I grew up with you, Obi-Wan. I’m one of three living native speakers of Kenobi. You know exactly what’s going on, and you’re stalling until you figure out how to word it.”

“I don’t do that.”

Siri raised an eyebrow. “Say the word, and I will call Bant right now and ask her if that’s a thing you do. If you don’t believe her, I will comm Quin, deep cover and all, to agree with us. Now tell me where they are.”

“I don’t know for certain where they are,” Obi-Wan admitted. “As for what they’re doing—you probably haven’t heard yet, but Anakin got in a saber duel with two unregistered Force users last night, one of whom we suspect to be a Sith.”

“Wait up a second. What did they look like?” Siri interrupted.

He squinted at the video of their escape. “The man is tall, with long dark hair, a little younger than us possibly. The girl is around your Padawan’s age, short, with brown hair pulled back. Why did you ask?”

Siri looked taken aback by the question. “I don’t know, how about curiosity? Some of us haven’t seen a real-life Sith before, much less killed one. I wanted to know how yellow the Sith’s eyes were. The records don’t say.” She grinned, but she looked faintly troubled. Of course, the Dark Side tended to make most Jedi antsy, and Siri had known Master Qui-Gon. She had every reason to seem rattled.

“I can’t see his eyes well in the security holos. You can ask Anakin, when we find him.”

“Right,” said Siri. “You still haven’t told me what this has to do with Naberrie’s little jaunt offplanet.”

“In the aftermath of the battle,” said Obi-Wan, “Anakin had a vision. I asked him about it, and I believe he might have lied to me.”

“Translation,” Siri broke in, “he definitely lied to you, but you decided not to press him on it because you’d rather act like his friend than his Master.”

That hit a little too close to home. “Siri, I’d like to suggest that you save the amateur mind-healing for a less dire circumstance.”

“Classic evasion,” said Siri. “You know I’m right. He’s a kriffing youngling, and he plays you like a seven-string hallikset. One tantrum about how Master Qui-Gon would never have been so cruel, and you’re allergic to correcting him.”

“Siri,” said Obi-Wan, feeling dangerously close to losing his sense of calm, “I don’t contradict or interfere in your training of Ferus, and I would thank you to extend the same courtesy to my relationship with Anakin.”

“Okay,” said Siri, relenting slightly. “I’m sorry. I was out of line. I’m worried about you, Obi-Wan.”

“Thank you for your concern, but I promise that I’m quite alright,” he said. “As I was saying, I think that Anakin is trying to take on the Darksiders himself, using Padmé to draw them out in accordance with information from his vision.”

“If that’s true, then he’s an idiot,” said Siri. “She’s even more of an idiot to listen to him. She has an entire planet to think of, and she’s flinging herself into the line of fire for no reason, with no good exit plan. And neither of them thought to tell a single person where they are!”

“Anakin told me that he only recognized one location in the vision, and I don’t think he was lying about that part. I’ll go try to intercept him there and bring them back,” said Obi-Wan. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience to you and Padawan Olin. Please pass on my apology to him.”

“Oh, no, you can tell him yourself,” said Siri. “We’re coming with you. Padmé slipped out from under our noses, so it’s our job to go drag her and her Senatorial hairstyles back to Coruscant where she belongs. I’ll never hear the end of it from Master Gallia otherwise.”

“Okay,” said Obi-Wan. He knew from Siri’s tone that he wasn’t getting out of this. “Give me two hours to go back to the Temple and grab my things.”

“Besides,” said Siri, “I want to give your Padawan a piece of my mind.”

“You will not do any such thing,” said Obi-Wan sternly. “How would you have felt if Qui-Gon told you off in front of Master Gallia for that time you beat up Bruck Chun?”

“Which time?” said Siri, matter-of-fact as always. “I can think of four off the top of my head.”

“I only saw one,” said Obi-Wan.

“The other three were in your defense,” Siri explained. “I always did it when you weren’t around. If you’d found out back then, you would have spent weeks working yourself half to death on hand-to-hand, just to prove that you didn’t need to be rescued by anyone. Plus, I would have had to admit that I didn’t think you were a stuck-up Masters’ pet.”

She was probably right. “You still haven’t answered my question, which leads me to suspect that you would have hated Qui-Gon interfering in your training,” he said, redirecting the conversation away from personal ground. They didn’t have time for reminiscences, if Anakin was missing.

“You know,” said Siri, “Master Jinn told me off on several occasions, all of them in front of Master Gallia. For all his many faults as a teacher—stop looking insulted on his behalf, Obi-Wan! I would never treat Ferus the way he treated you, and if you think you’re capable of treating Anakin like that, I have a Sith-detecting amulet to sell you.”

“What’s your point?” said Obi-Wan wearily. “And can you possibly make it without insulting the only Master who actually wanted me as a Padawan?”

“Only kriffing good decision Jinn ever made,” Siri muttered darkly. “Anyway, what I meant to say was that even if Master Qui-Gon had the compassion of a hydraulic spanner and the emotional sensitivity of Yoda’s gimer stick, getting repeatedly told off by him actually helped me realize that I needed to work on being able to function effectively as part of a team. In fact, I eventually overcame that flaw  _ because _ I spent twenty years getting told, by Master Gallia, Qui-Gon, and half the Jedi in the Temple, that it would eventually destroy my career as a Jedi if I wasn’t careful.”

“I’ll talk to Anakin,” said Obi-Wan, as firmly as he could. “I’d appreciate it if you stayed out of it for now. He’s not in a good place to hear criticism. I can meet you and Ferus at Temple Bay Twelve in two hours.”

“Make it Bay Fifteen,” said Siri. “I just replaced my hyperdrive. She’s a thing of beauty. Where are we going?”

“We’re going to Tatooine,” said Obi-Wan.

“I take it back,” said Siri immediately. “We’ll fly yours.”

* * *

“About time,” said Anakin Skywalker’s Force Ghost the instant Rey stepped foot on the sands of Tatooine. “They docked an hour ago.”

“Ben,” Rey called to Kylo, who was paying Lor Traad, “our trading partners have already arrived.”

“Keep the change; you deserve it,” Kylo muttered, and jogged over to Rey. “How long ago did they dock?”

“An hour,” said Anakin tersely. “My younger self is very eager to kill both of you. Speaking of, you might want to find something to disguise yourselves with. He gave your descriptions to everyone in the port.”

“I have a spare cloak in my pack,” Kylo offered. “You could do that...head tying thing from your memories, Rey.”

“We should get out of the port, first,” said Rey. “How close is your homestead, Anakin?”

“They took a rickshaw,” said Anakin. “So they’ll arrive in another fifteen minutes or so. This is why you should have mindtricked the owner of a faster ship, Ben.”

Kylo looked pale. “We’re going to be too late. As soon as he gets back to the homestead, he’s going to hear that his mom’s been taken,” he said. “If we take eopies, we’ll be too late to stop him.”

“If she isn’t dead, he won’t kill them,” Rey said, with more confidence than she felt. “Right?”

“No,” said Anakin grimly, his eyes distant. “I’d have killed them anyway. If there is one scratch on her, he’ll kill them, and we’re only a day or so away from her death. He’ll kill them.”

“We need something faster,” said Kylo. Rey grabbed his hand and pulled him in the direction of a speederbike stand.

“I gave all my credits to our pilot,” he protested. “Unless you’re planning on selling me to the Hutts, we need to steal bikes, not rent them.”

Rey ignored him. “You will give us two bikes for free,” she told the proprietor. 

“You can have two bikes for free,” he repeated, and unlocked them from the rack.

“I thought we weren’t mindtricking people,” Kylo muttered as he mounted his bike.

“We’re not mindtricking entire crowds of people,” Rey retorted. “And will you please relax? I can feel you through the bond, and it’s stressing me out.”

“You’re not much of a beacon of calming light yourself right now,” he said, jamming his finger down on the brake lever. “How the hell do I get this thing to start?”

“Did you never ride speederbikes?” 

“My mother thought they were deathtraps,” he explained. “Then my teenage rebellion phase came along, but they didn’t have any bikes at the Temple, only multiperson transports. After I fell, I had better things to do, and there was some concern about the optics of the Master of the Knights of Ren riding a speederbike around like a romantic interest in a holo.”

“The lever you’re pressing is the brake. Starter’s over there, actually,” said Rey helpfully. “Are you telling me that Hux talked about romantic holofilms in a First Order meeting?”

“Yes,” said Kylo, “with impressive clinical detachment. And a visual aid in the form of a scene from  _ Corellian Holiday. _ ” His speederbike rumbled to life under him. “Force, this thing is loud!” he yelled. “People shouldn’t drive these without earplugs!”

“Pipe down!” Rey hissed, getting close enough for him to hear her. “The locals are staring at us. You go faster with that pedal and steer with the front handles. I’ll follow Anakin, and you follow me.”

“There’s no way he’s actually my grandson,” Anakin deadpanned behind her. “Padmé must have cheated on me with some sort of awkward, buttoned-up, prematurely old librarian who can’t ride speederbikes.”

“Trust me,” said Rey, climbing onto her own bike, “I know him better. He’s definitely related to you.”

All in all, it took twenty minutes for them to make it out to the Lars homestead. They parked the speeders as close as they could get without being seen from the house and settled down to watch. 

There was a slurping noise next to Rey. “Are you alright?”

Kylo looked up from his canteen and grimaced. “My tongue has swollen to the size of my mouth,” he said. “My throat feels like it’s made of sand.”

“We don’t have enough water for you to drink it this quickly,” she said. “Can you swish it around your mouth or something before you swallow?”

“Don’t talk,” added Anakin. “Opening your mouth lets the moisture out. Make sure you blink often. Don’t lick your lips.”

“Do you have that spare cloak?” said Rey. “We’ll overheat quicker if our heads are uncovered. Especially you, with all your hair.”

He opened up his pack and pointed to a folded bundle of black fabric. 

“No good,” said Anakin. “Dark fabric absorbs sunlight.” Rey rummaged in her pack and found a set of her old clothes. She ripped the wrappings down the middle, held one half out to Kylo, and demonstrated how to tie it.

“They’re moving over there,” said Anakin. “I’m storming out now. Your eleven-o’clock.”

Rey shuddered. Even at this distance, she could feel the miasma of terror, pain and helpless rage that swirled around Anakin’s Padawan self in the Force. 

In the distance, he looked up, directly towards their hiding spot. His eyes narrowed, and a flare of suspicion crackled into existence around him. Rey pulled the Force around her and Kylo like a cloak— _ he can’t notice us, he can’t _ —and squeezed her eyes shut. Beside her, she could feel Kylo breathing, slowly and shallowly. She felt as if there was a shadow prowling around her in the Force, testing the edges of her shield warily.

Then the shadow lifted, and a cool, gentle breeze ruffled her face. She heard a speederbike race away into the distance. “Time to go, kids,” said Anakin’s ghost. 

Rey hurried to mount her bike and was already idling it when Kylo yelled in sudden, angry pain. “Kriff,” she swore, and leaped off. “What happened?”

“He punched the bike when it wouldn’t start,” said Anakin dryly. “He’s definitely related to me.”

“Let me try,” said Rey, pushing past Kylo. She hit the starter button viciously. Nothing happened. 

“It worked fine on the way over!” said Kylo defensively. “I swear, I didn’t do anything.”

Rey lay down on her back and pulled open the engine compartment. Anakin hovered nearby, crouched beside her head. “Fuel line,” she announced after a brief inspection. “It must have been nearly worn out before. The sand rubs through them fast.”

“She’s not going anywhere else today,” Anakin concurred.

“I don’t think we can both fit on one bike,” said Kylo, eyeing the remaining speederbike dubiously. “Can you patch it up with tape or something?”

“No,” said Anakin. “Unless you have tape conveniently at hand.”

Rey dusted her hands off on her civilian leggings. “Give me your saber.”

“Why?” said Kylo.

“Only one of us can go after him,” she said, fighting for calm. “We have to go quickly, or we won’t be able to catch him. He doesn’t have concrete evidence that I’m any sort of Sith, which is good, because he needs to be able to trust whoever’s talking him down. Besides, we’ve now thoroughly established that you’re shit at talking to people. If I’m attacked on the way, I need a weapon. Hence, the saber. You’ll be staying here, closer to civilization, so you won’t need it as much.”

Kylo’s jaw was tight. “Nice plan, Rey,” he said icily. “Very well laid out. But you’re forgetting something crucial. You don’t have the ability to talk him down.”

“Why can’t I?” she shot back. 

“Do you really need me to spell it out for you? When was the last time you woke up surrounded by dead bodies?” Kylo said irritably. “No, really, Rey, I want to know all about the  _ extensive _ experience you have with genocide. How are you going to use that experience to talk an unstable, angry Padawan out of committing one? Because from where I’m standing, all you have to offer is the usual Jedi peace and tranquility banthashit, and we already know that did kriff-all to stop him from Falling the first time!”

“This is too important,” Rey insisted. “I’m sorry, Ben, but you aren’t exactly stable yourself. If I go, I know he won’t be able to make me lose my temper. If I fail to convince him, I’ll fight him until he comes to his senses. But if I let you go instead, I don’t know what you’ll do. We can’t afford uncertainty like that.”

“You haven’t been in his position,” Kylo argued. 

“Watching the only person I love bleed out in front of me, with their attacker ten feet away?” Rey countered, suddenly angry. “I guess I just hallucinated Starkiller Base, then.”

“You don’t know about the Dark Side the way I do!” said Kylo. “How do you intend to talk him out of channeling it, when you barely know how it feels?”

“How do you intend to talk him out of using it, when you swear up and down that you’re happier with it than you ever were as a Jedi?” Rey yelled. There was a lump forming in her throat, and tears prickled behind her eyes.  _ Don’t waste water, _ she chided herself. 

“So that’s what this is about,” said Kylo. His voice was outwardly calm, but she could feel bitter anger growing in his Force signature. He was crackling with Dark energy, so much that Rey pulled away in the bond, just a little. “You won’t trust me, because you’ve finally realized that you can’t bring me back to the Light. It’s all about that, with you.”

“What do you want me to say here?” Rey snapped. “That I support your decision to channel Ultimate Evil and try to kill my friends? That I see why you couldn’t be bothered to actually talk to your family and try to fix your own problems, without turning your allegiance over to an evil giant in a bathrobe? Because I don’t support that, and I don’t think any of those things were good ideas.”

“Is that really what you think of me, Rey?” said Kylo quietly.

“No, it’s not,” said Rey. She forced herself to step back from her anger before she lost control altogether. “I believe people are more than the sum of their stupid mistakes. But I also believe that when you make a stupid mistake, you have to be willing to admit that it was a stupid mistake.”

“It wasn’t,” said Kylo. He lowered his voice as if he was trying to hold himself back. “I have made many, many stupid mistakes, and I’ve told you that I regret them. But the Dark Side was not one of them, and if you think I need to regret Falling, we should part company this instant, because we will never agree on this.”

“What are we doing here?” said Rey exasperatedly. “Why are we going to all this bother to change your grandfather’s timeline?”

“To stop him from Falling,” said Kylo. “Obviously.”

“Why bother, when the Dark Side is clearly so wonderful?”

“Because,” said Kylo, as if she was asking a stupid question, “it’s the right thing for me, but it’s not the right thing for him. He told us it wasn’t, and historically, his Fall led to billions of deaths across the galaxy.”

“I can draw a line,” said Rey, “directly between your Fall, and every regret you have ever voiced to me. So if those were stupid mistakes, then so was Falling. If you can’t see that, then you’re more of a fool than Anakin, and you shouldn’t bother trying to stop him from Falling.”

“If one of you,” said Anakin dangerously, “doesn’t get on the kriffing speederbike this instant, nobody’s going to be able to stop him from doing anything.”

“You have no right to judge me, Rey,” Kylo growled. “You call yourself a Jedi, because my uncle told you that you were one, but you don’t actually care about Jedi values. You’re so terrified of people abandoning you that you’d Fall in a heartbeat to keep them at your side.”

“Because Falling to spite people who care about you is  _ so  _ much better,” Rey shot back, feeling her cheeks burning. “I don’t care how you access the Force, Kylo, but I do care about what you do with it, and who you use it to help.”

“You don’t care about the war!” Kylo said. “You grew up on Jakku. Don’t lecture me about the joys of democracy.”

“You’re off-topic, Kylo,” said Anakin. 

“I am not your morality project, Rey,” said Kylo, and Rey stiffened angrily.

“Actually, I thought you were my friend,” she snapped. “But apparently, to be friends with you, I have to bite my tongue while you talk about how liberating it was to try slaughtering people for a change!”

“Whereas you merely try to annoy me back to the Light by endlessly yelling my flaws at me,” said Kylo, with bitter sarcasm. “Allow me to return the favor, Rey. You really are no one! Not because of your worthless parents, but because you keep waiting for other people to tell you who you are. If I had met you on Jakku before you ran into Dameron’s droid, you’d be working with the First Order right now,” he snarled. 

“That’s not true!” said Rey furiously. “The First Order blew up an entire star system. Billions of deaths, and we both felt every moment of that in the Force. And you let them. I would never have let them.”

“You,” said Kylo enunciating clearly, “are a  _ child _ in the middle of a war that is far older and far bigger than you. Stop living in a fantasy, Rey. When this little vacation is over, we will be back on opposite sides where we started. I will kill all of your friends, one by one, Dameron the imbecile and Tico the weakling and that spineless traitor, FN-2187, and I probably won’t regret it. So grow up, scavenger.”

Rey felt her own anger as if it was a living thing inside her, unfurling gradually, all claws and fangs and teeth. “And you wondered why I don’t trust you, _ ” _ she said scathingly. “Keep your saber. I don’t want to talk to you any more.” She stalked over to the bike, leapt on board, hit the starter, and roared off at top speed.

_ Too bad we’re still Force-bonded, _ he sent her, all acidic vitriol. 

_ Kriff you, Ben,  _ she sent back, and slammed down every shield she had, hard and fast, until she couldn’t feel him anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (hides)
> 
> I’m really sorry, guys...it’s probably not a spoiler to say that things will get better soon(ish). They’re idiots, I know, and I promise I’ll let them talk to each other about this without yelling—at some point. Not just yet.
> 
> In “things you probably don’t care about but I’m going to say anyway”—Siri does not have a saberstaff in Legends canon. She has a saberstaff (that collapses into two sabers) here because I really, really love White Canary, and I want to give her some of Sara Lance’s baton/staff fighting moves from Legends of Tomorrow, because I’m a nerd with no self-control. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, enjoy the following: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jpUM9TzXbi0
> 
> Next up: Kylo somehow manages to give Anakin another reason to want him dead (sigh), Rey learns a valuable skill, and we finally get a Padmé POV!
> 
> Thanks so much everyone for reading and commenting!! You guys are the best, and I’m having an insanely awesome time!
> 
> <3 Liv


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting early before I leave school for spring break!! I have a major performance/competition thing coming up in a week, so send me good vibes next Saturday morning if you get the chance!!
> 
> Now tune in for the continuation of Kylo’s idiotic streak. I promise he will learn, but isn’t this way just as fun?

“I was right,” Kylo told Anakin’s Force Ghost as he watched Rey’s bike disappear into the expanse of sand on the horizon. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

There was no response. 

“She’ll come back to try and get my saber, at least,” he ventured. “She owes me an apology.”

It made sense, Kylo told himself. Anakin needed to be with Rey, to help her get through to his younger self. He couldn’t manifest in two places at once, and it wasn’t like Kylo was going to be doing anything.

It was getting dark out. The first sun had already set, and the second was dwindling, casting bright orange and red highlights through the sky. He found his spare cloak in his pack and put it on. Even in the half-hour he’d spent on Jakku, he’d learned that deserts got cold fast at night.

Rey was being ridiculous, he told himself. She couldn’t seriously intend to go out, alone and unarmed, to face someone who had defeated her in their last battle, just because she was angry at Kylo—if she wasn’t lucky, she was going to be injured.

The natural conclusion of that line of reasoning drew him up short. He poked around the edges of the bond, for a while, and tried to open it on his end. Nothing.

She could already be dying, he realized, with a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the desert night. If he were dying, he might not open the bond to call for help. He’d still be angry at Rey—he still was angry at Rey, even while he was worried for her—and by the time he realized he wasn’t escaping without help, he could easily be too weak to send out a message.

Was Rey stubborn enough to try to hold out in a bad situation until it was too late?

Yes, of course she was. In the year or so he’d known her, he’d never seen her admit when she was wrong, even when it was blindingly obvious. If they’d kept fighting the war, she would probably have rather killed him than Fall.

With a sudden unease, he realized that it took an immense amount of mental energy to run shields that thick through a Force Bond. He’d noticed, ever since Starkiller, that when he devoted a significant portion of his attention to keeping her out, his other skills weakened rapidly. 

_You should take down your shields, Rey,_ he sent through the bond. _I am furious at you, and I don’t want to talk to you, but we’re both mature enough to stay out of each other’s heads until you come to your senses._

There was no reply. She couldn’t hear him, because her kriffing shields were _still up._

Any second now, he was going to feel the pain in the Force as a bond was torn away. He had felt that pain twice before. When he’d killed Snoke, every voice he’d ever had in his head as a child had returned with a vengeance, ripping into his mind from the inside out, and he hadn’t even had the time to scream because if he stopped for a moment, he would die. Then, more indirectly, he had felt the same when Luke died, mere hours later, because it turned out that even leaving the Jedi for good hadn’t fully severed that bond. His bond with his uncle had been old and frayed, barely hanging on, but still he had felt as if he might die as well when it blinked out, Rey’s utter anguish and his own pain colliding and ricocheting and amplifying across the only bond he had left. 

That pain was going to come back for him, any moment now, with no warning.

_Rey, I’m willing to forgive you if you apologize,_ he sent over the bond. _Please transmit confirmation that you are, indeed, alive._ There was no answer.

He reached out, tentatively, to Anakin’s Force Ghost, and got a wordless sense of _busy_ in reply. He tried to reach Obi-Wan, and was met with an impressive shield of stiff, Coruscanti-accented disapproval. 

There was another ghost he could try to contact, of course, but he knew he wasn’t ready to take that step yet. Besides, there wasn’t much Luke could do, even if he was willing to talk to Kylo by some miracle. 

Then, he remembered that there was one other person out here in the desert tonight.

* * *

The knock was unnerving at this time of night, now that Padmé was alone in the Lars family’s visitor shelter. On Naboo, the settlers in the outskirts, long ago, had told the story of a child who ran away from their parents and starved to death. The shade was said to knock on the doors of new parents, begging for scraps and pleading to be let in, so that it could twist their minds and make them think it was their own child. Then, it ate their spirits, leaving only empty husks, and moved on. It was meant to be a story to frighten little ones such as Padmé had been once, overly curious and enamoured of dark corners and hidden things. 

“Help me,” said a hoarse voice through the door. “Please, open the door.”

It wasn’t a child’s voice, but Padmé felt a chill on the back of her neck. She went around to the side and tried to look out the window. There was a hulking black shadow, cloaked and hooded, out by the front of the hut.

“Please,” said the shadow, “I know someone’s home. Don’t pretend. Either let me in, or turn me away, but open the door.”

“Who are you?” Padmé called.

“No one,” said the voice. “It’s better if you don’t know.”

That wasn’t a reassuring answer. Then Padmé remembered the scar on the back of Anakin’s neck, where his tracker used to be. “Are you running away from someone?” she asked carefully.

“Technically, I suppose,” said the voice. “It’s a complicated situation. I‘d be putting you in danger if I explained more.”

She almost unlocked the door. Then she remembered Anakin, and how nervous he’d been to leave her alone and find his mother. “I would let you in if it were up to me, but this isn’t actually my house. You could try the main part of the homestead. Or my friend should be getting back soon, and he can help you.”

“I don’t think I can wait for him,” said the voice, with a twinge of irony that didn’t quite make sense to her. “I’m sorry for bothering you.” The shadow outside turned away.

“Wait!” said Padmé. She remembered all too well what it was like to be on the run, to automatically become a suspicious figure who could be denied basic sentient kindnesses without consequence. “Even if I can’t let you in, there has to be something I can do. I have ration bars here, and a heat-blanket. I can drop them out the window for you.”

“Thank you,” said the shadow quietly. 

“Wait here,” she said. “I’ll go make you a bundle. Do you need first aid supplies?”

“I’m uninjured,” the shadow said. 

“For your tracker,” Padmé explained. “I can try to find some sort of knife, and there’s got to be a clean bit of cloth around here, somewhere.”

“No, thank you,” said the shadow. “You don’t need to worry about that. You’re already helping us a lot.”

“Us?” said Padmé, grabbing an extra handful of ration bars. “How many of you are there?”

“Sorry,” said the shadow. “I misspoke. We’ve gone our separate ways now. Anyway, that’s more information than you care about.”

She put the extra ration bars back in the box, and added a few bandages and a lighter stick to the pack instead. “What happened? You shouldn’t be alone out here after dark.”

“Trust me,” said the shadow. “I’m aware.” 

Padmé risked a glance out the window again. The shadowy figure had sat down, and was leaning his back against the door of the hut. With his hood off, he was several years older than her, with waxy skin and thick, dark hair. He had the same, haunted look that Obi-Wan had worn when she saw him after the Battle of Naboo. It was the way Anakin had looked when she’d woken him from a nightmare on the ship. “Do you know where your friend is?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. His eyes were closed, and his head was tipped back towards the sky. “She went off to do something dangerous.”

“Oh,” said Padmé, feeling a flash of sympathy. “I hate when that happens.”

“She’s not my friend,” said the man slowly. “I don’t know what she is. I don’t mind that she left. I just wish she wouldn’t die.”

“Maybe she won’t,” said Padmé. “If she does, it isn’t your fault.”

“It is,” said the man matter-of-factly. “We got in an argument before we split up. If I hadn’t lost my temper, I could have convinced her to let me go. Or I could have let her take my blaster.”

He hesitated slightly before the word ‘blaster’, Padmé noticed, as if he hadn’t wanted her to know he was armed. “I had a friend die because of me, recently,” she said, after a moment. “She was on a transport I was supposed to be on, and it crashed.” It was close enough to the truth, without mentioning that her friend was a decoy, the crash was a bombing, and she was an influential planetary senator with a hefty Separatist price on her head. There were some things you didn’t tell strangers at night on Hutt cartel planets.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “At least she didn’t die thinking you hated her.”

Padmé dropped the pack out the window, gently. “Bad argument?”

“Bad is an understatement,” said the man. He unfolded himself from the wall and went over to the pack. Something in his overly long limbs and awkward stride reminded her of Anakin, for a moment. She blinked, and the resemblance was gone. “We spent so long hating each other for no good reason. She says we’re not enemies, but every time I try to be honest with her, she—she’s so disappointed. In the person I am.”

“I see,” said Padmé. “I wish I could help you. I don’t really have many friends of my own. Work keeps me too busy for that, I’m afraid.”

“She’s not my friend,” the man repeated. “She’s sort of my coworker, for now.” 

“Why isn’t she your friend?” said Padmé curiously. “Because you fought?”

“Because sometimes I hate her,” he said simply. “I don’t want to, and I’m trying not to, but there it is. I’m incredibly jealous of her. There were so many things that I wanted, that were supposed to be mine, and they were hers, instead. And it wasn’t even her fault that she got them.”

“You’re not really a runaway slave, are you?” said Padmé. “A slave wouldn’t talk about having things.”

“You’re much better off if you don’t know who I am,” he reminded her seriously.

“Right,” she said. “You can call me Sabé.”

The man hesitated. “Han,” he said, finally. 

“You and your friend have been in dangerous situations before?”

He shrugged. “Nothing exactly like this,” he said, with a measured, careful tone of voice. “I suppose what we do would seem dangerous to a moisture farmer, but you already implied that you aren’t one.”

She chose to ignore the obvious bait. “When was the last time you saw your friend get seriously physically hurt?”

He thought back. “Never,” he said decisively. “But one slip is all it takes.”

“I know that. I’m not trying to reassure you,” said Padmé. “That doesn’t work. I’m trying to help you calculate the odds.”

“Someone I knew once,” he said, with a twist in his voice that meant _pain,_ “used to say not to tell him those.”

“Maybe that worked for him,” said Padmé. “I’ll give her nine.”

“Nine what?”

“Nine to one. Nine times out of ten, she comes back alive, one time she doesn’t.”

He scoffed. “Nine to one she comes back, completely uninjured and with enough energy to yell at me for thirty minutes about the ways I was wrong last we spoke. Alive is forty-nine to one.”

“Then you have no reason to worry,” said Padmé firmly. “But you should think about how to fix things, when she gets back.”

“I will,” he said. “Thank you, Sabé.”

“You’re welcome, Han.” She stepped away from the window, intending to try to sleep, when she was struck by a sudden thought. “Han, does your friend have an audiocomm, by any chance?”

“She does. Do you have one?” he asked, with barely concealed eagerness.

“I don’t right now, but there’s a land-linked satcom receiver inside. You can try to get in touch with her, if you like,” she offered. “As long as you’re out before my friend gets back.”

“Are you sure?” he said, doubtfully. “I don’t want to get you in trouble with the homesteaders.”

“They won’t mind,” she said. “They’re kind to people in need.”

“Then yes, I would like that,” Han said. “Thank you, Sabé. You’ve done more for me than I can ever repay.”

“It’s no problem,” she said, flicking back the lock, “really, I’m happy to—”

She stopped talking suddenly. There was a red lightsaber, leveled at her neck. The odds of someone at the main homestead hearing her scream were something like one to nineteen. Not good enough, with an unstable lightsaber crackling an inch from her neck.

“Sorry for the deception, Senator Naberrie,” said Han. He looked determined, rather than pleased or smug, like a bounty hunter who had cornered a victim. “This isn’t personal. It’s merely a method of improving the odds.”

She looked him straight in the eyes and fought to keep her breathing regular. If she flinched or gulped, that might put her neck too close to the saber. He was nearly a foot taller than her, but she knew the layout of the hut and he didn’t. He was blocking the only door, and the window was too small to get out of. The best weapon in the house was a miniblaster in her pack, but it only held twelve charges. The second-best weapon was a knife, but she’d have to get past his guard to do any damage with it.

Fourteen to one, she could get to her pack, if she moved soon. That was the easy part. One to four out of that, she could get the blaster before he got to her. Then twelve close-range shots, each with roughly seventy-five percent chance that he’d deflect, six percent chance she’d miss, and five percent chance he’d disarm her. That meant she had about three to ninety-seven, overall. And if she made him angry, it would be harder to talk to him and figure out why he was attacking her.

She held up her hands in surrender. “Han, we can talk about this. I can help you.”

“You can,” he said coolly. “Go to your satcom receiver and place a call.”

“I would have let you call her!” Padmé said. “You don’t need to threaten me with a lightsaber, Han.”

“Place the call,” he said. “I don’t know the number. That’s why you’re doing it.”

“Who?” she asked, trying to think of ways to deactivate his saber or at least get it out of his reach.

“Call Anakin Skywalker,” said Han. “Tell him that the Sith he’s been looking for is here, and I want to talk to him.”

* * *

Rey’s game plan for stopping Anakin Skywalker from murdering a village full of Tuskens was fairly nebulous, but it went something like this:

> Step one: Get close enough to him to talk, without him stabbing her on sight for being a Sith.
> 
> Step two: Try to explain to him that revenge killing tended to have terrible consequences, down the line.
> 
> Step three: Hopefully, distract him long enough that most of his intended victims could get away, and then convince him to get his mother safely back to civilization, rather than go after them.

It wasn’t a great plan, and Rey was acutely aware of that fact.

“Park here,” said Anakin’s ghost. “I’ll come in with you. Don’t talk to me, or they’ll think you’re seeing things.”

“Will you be alright?” Rey asked carefully, activating the kickstand on her speederbike. “You don’t have to see this.”

“I’m doing what needs to be done,” said Anakin, in a tone that didn’t allow for argument. “And I’ve already seen the worst this night has to offer.”

Rey reached out in the Force, keeping her signature shielded as well as she could manage while still keeping the thick, heavy bond shield intact. “Which tent?” she asked Anakin, already combing through the encampment herself. 

Anakin reached out with a translucent hand to point. “That one—” 

He cut off, suddenly, with a strangled, painful inhale. “Anakin?” she asked.

Then it hit her, too—a raw, terrifying, near-incapacitating hurricane of grief and hatred and terror in the Force, that spanned the whole of the encampment. Even at a distance, she felt as if the very breath was being ripped from her lungs. Her knees gave way under her. _He’s found her._

“You have to get down to him, Rey,” said Anakin, over the storm. 

“I can’t,” she said. Even talking was painful beyond belief. “I can’t stand up.” 

“You have to,” Anakin repeated. “You have to.” He said it like it was a chant, or a prayer.

She reached roots made of the Force down into the sand, and leveraged herself upward. She poured her energy into reinforcing her legs and forcing breath back into her chest. For a moment, she stood upright—then the hurricane _snatched_ away her Force constructs, and she fell, hard, to the sand.

“That isn’t going to work,” Anakin said urgently. “The storm’s too strong. Give me your hand, Rey.”

Her hand felt leaden as she pried it up from the sand and reached to him. She could see him grab it, but all she felt was a steady warmth around her hand, as if it was somewhere else, somewhere safe and comfortable. Anakin shut his eyes, and after a moment, she did the same. Automatically, she slipped into a pre-meditative state: counting her breaths, making sure they were slow and even, cataloguing tension in her body, and trying to clear her mind.

She could feel a warm, soft glow that began at her hand, and radiated outwards to fill her body. Her limbs felt lighter, and the storm softened until all she could feel of it was a mild buzz in her ears.

Rey opened her eyes. “Thanks,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“Sorry,” said Anakin. In the moonlight, he seemed so translucent that she could barely make out his outline. “I have to sit this one out now, I think.”

Rey put the pieces together. “Are you alright?” she asked. “You didn’t need to put yourself at risk. We could have figured something else out.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll reabsorb most of it from the ambient Force. I’m tough. Just give me a bit of time.”

“How long?” asked Rey.

Anakin shook his head. “Don’t know. I haven’t done this before. Nobody told me how until after I died.”

“Is there anything I can do?” asked Rey, tentatively.

“Yes!” said Anakin, suddenly frustrated. “Stop talking to me, and hurry up! I’ll be fine, I promise.”

She pulled her cloak up and sprinted towards the encampment.

“By the way, Rey,” said Anakin’s voice in her head, “be kind to him.”

_I’ll try,_ she thought, and hoped he could hear her.

The tent turned out to be fairly easy to find. She followed the swirl of the hurricane in the Force to a tent with a gaping hole in the wall, clearly cut by a lightsaber, and ducked in. 

Anakin was sitting with his back to her, clutching onto a frail woman with dark hair. Inside the tent, there was no Force Storm. Everything was calm—gentle, even. She stopped inside the doorway and waited for him to notice her.

“You’re here to kill me now, aren’t you,” said Anakin, softly. “You made them take her to bring me here, and now you’re going to try to kill me.”

Rey stepped further into the tent, holding her hands above her head. “I’m not here to kill you,” she said.

“Where’s the Sith?” he asked, his voice measured and light. “Don’t startle her, now. She’s dreaming.”

“I don’t know where he is,” said Rey. “He didn’t want me to come.”

“So you knew about this,” said Anakin. He brushed a piece of hair back from his mother’s face. She stirred, and her face twisted in pain. “Shh, shh,” he whispered. “You’re alright. I’m right here.”

“I knew,” Rey admitted, “but I can’t tell you how.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Anakin. His voice was low and agonized, even though he was trying to pitch it to sound soothing. “It doesn’t matter at all.”

“I came to warn you—” she began, stepping around to face him, but he cut her off.

“Stay where she can’t see you,” he said. “It won’t be much longer, now.” Over his shoulder, Rey saw him reflexively tracing her hand in his, running his fingers over her knuckles. He found a scar, and stayed there for a moment, rubbing it. “Do you have parents?”

“No,” she said softly. “They gave me up when I was young.”

“Right,” he said. “I forgot. Jedi Order. Fallen Jedi. Whatever you are.” He interlaced his fingers into his mothers’ and squeezed. “You should go,” he said. “I don’t want you here, when she goes. I want it to be her and me.” He was crying, she realized—softly, so his mother didn’t notice. “She might wake up again.”

The energy Anakin had given her to weather the storm suddenly felt too much for her body, here in the eye of the hurricane where it was calm. She could sense it, buzzing and humming around the corners of her skin, twitching to be let out. “Let me try something,” said Rey.

“No,” said Anakin, fiercely protective. “Never.”

“I can try to heal her,” she said.

“There’s not enough of her left to heal,” said Anakin. “Even I can seal wounds. Don’t try to trick me.”

“Let me try to help,” she said again. “Please. I don’t mean either of you harm. Something’s telling me that this is right.” She shoved everything he couldn’t know (the list, the future, his own ghost, Kylo) behind her strongest shield, the one that was keeping the bond closed. Then she opened her mind and laid bare her intent.

“I can’t trust you,” he said. He reached out and smoothed away some of the tension on his mother’s brow.

“I don’t know if I can save her,” said Rey. “But at the very least, I can ease the pain.” She reached out and touched his mind, just enough to indicate to him that she’d dropped her shields. 

He touched her mind briefly, feeling the general intent of _save-heal-protect-help,_ and then went straight for her remaining shields. _What are you hiding there?_ he asked, with a wave of angry, protective suspicion. _Why are you doing this, anyway?_

_Not relevant,_ Rey sent firmly. _But you know I can’t lie about my intentions in the Force. I think I was meant to help you._

Something about those words hit him hard. She could feel the shockwaves reverberating through his mind. There was a flash: _Shmi, seen by a child and impossibly tall—“he was meant to help you,” she said, and Anakin had wondered, years later, if she’d had visions like his…_

His shields slammed down. “Get out of my head,” he snarled. Shmi stirred in his arms uneasily, but didn’t wake. “Oh no, no, no I’m so sorry, Mom, everything’s alright, I’m fine,” he murmured, sadly. “Someone’s going to try and help us. Her name is Rey.”

At least his sojourn in her head had spared her the trouble of coming up with an alias. She stepped around the wooden pillar with its dangling, bloody straps and kneeled down beside them. “Do it,” Anakin hissed. His eyes were wild. “Please, I’ll do anything.”

“I need her hand,” said Rey. 

He lifted Shmi’s hand from his shoulder, pressing a kiss to the pad of the thumb, and closed Rey’s grasp on it. “Be careful.”

“Yours too,” said Rey, catching it by the wrist so that their three hands were stacked together. She closed her eyes and reached for the light the other Anakin had sent her. _Thank you,_ she told the Force, _but someone needs this more than me._

In her hand, she could feel Shmi’s light, flickering like a candle, and Anakin’s presence, curled over her protectively, shielding her. _Let me in,_ she thought, nudging at the shield with the light. He opened up a gap the size of a pinprick, but stayed wary.

Carefully and slowly, she funneled the light into Shmi, fanning the candle flame to burn brighter and steadier. Anakin relaxed his guard once he saw what she was doing, but only slightly. 

She ran out of light eventually, so she drew from herself, and from Anakin, and the Force around her, until Shmi’s light in the Force was strong and vital and brimming with life, and there was no more room in her presence for Rey to channel energy into.

Rey opened her eyes. The world seemed suddenly dimmer, and her head swam. Her legs felt shaky and weak. She squeezed Anakin’s hand, and let go. He blinked back to awareness and stared down at Shmi.

She was breathing normally, and her color was healthy. “Mom?” he whispered. “How do you feel?”

Shmi’s eyes opened. “Ani,” she said, smiling. But she was staring past Anakin. “You got old.”

“Mom,” said a choked voice behind Rey. “I love you. I—I can’t express how glad I am that you’re okay. But you’re going to live a long time, now. I promise. So you can’t see me again. I just needed to see you.”

“I’m here, Mom,” said the present-day Anakin. “Just like I was before. I’m nineteen. Twenty in a month.”

“Thank you,” said Shmi, to both of them. She smiled, and turned her focus to the living Anakin. “Let’s go home,” she said. “I want to know all about the man you’ve become.”

Anakin’s face went distant. Rey felt her stomach sink. “In a moment, Mom,” said Anakin. 

“Where are you going?” asked Shmi, propping herself up in a seated position. 

“I need to know who did this,” said Anakin. “Stay here and regain your strength. It’s a long ride back.”

Rey got to her feet. Her head felt light, and her vision had a fuzzy, black edge to it. “Don’t do this, Anakin,” she warned. 

“I have to,” he insisted stonily. “And if you really were innocent, you’d want to see justice done, too.”

“This isn’t justice,” said Rey. “If you want to find the truth, I will do anything I can to help you. But if you go out there and start hurting people, I will stop you.”

“You and what lightsaber?” Anakin scoffed. “You’re not from here. The Tuskens kill for sport. They torture people, and they leave them to die of thirst, without any reason. They’re not going to change, and they don’t deserve to live.”

“You don’t get to decide that,” said Rey numbly. The words felt meaningless and rote in her mouth. 

“They were going to leave me alone,” said Anakin, with a harsh, broken edge to his voice.

“Ani,” said Shmi hoarsely, “you became a Jedi.”

“I am a Jedi,” said Anakin angrily. “I’ve been to hundreds of worlds, Mom. Believe me when I say that what the Tuskens do is wrong, everywhere I’ve been. What the Hutts do is just as wrong. And now I have the power to stop it. So I have to. To save everyone else.” His voice was resonant and powerful, and something in Rey shuddered in uneasy recognition. Anakin was all too easy to agree with, like this, and it frightened her.

She shook off the feeling, stood up and walked over to block the door. “You’ll have to go through me,” she said, projecting determination.

“I will,” he said, and ignited his saber. Rey called the Force to her. If she was lucky, she could push him away and buy some time to raise the alarm.

Kylo was going to be so angry at her if she died, she thought. Then she put that thought aside and focused on her task. Thinking about Kylo wasn’t going to help her.

“What’s that noise?” said Shmi.

“What’s what noise?” said Anakin. He stood still for a second, clearly listening. Then he deactivated his saber, and grabbed his comm receiver from his belt. 

“Padmé? What’s going on?”

“Is this Anakin Skywalker?” said Kylo’s voice. Rey froze. Then she pulled down the shield over their bond and sent him a blistering wave of _cut this banthashit out right now, you stupid, stupid idiot._ He didn’t acknowledge her. He was probably shielding from her, like the stubborn, insane, foolhardy son of a nerfherder he was.

“Yes,” said Anakin coldly. “If you know my name, you know who this comm belongs to.”

“Yes,” said Kylo.

“Put her on,” Anakin growled. 

“First,” said Kylo, “answer a question for me. I have something of yours. Do you have something of mine?”

Anakin stared hollowly at Rey. “Yes,” he said. “Now put Padmé on the line.”

“Ani,” said a soft, melodious female voice on the other end. “Thank Shiraya, you’re all right. Did you find your mother?”

“Yes,” said Anakin shakily. “She’s alive. Has he hurt you? I swear, Padmé, I’ll kill him.”

“I’m fine,” said Padmé. “He wants me to tell you to bring the girl, and come back to the house. He wants to talk to you.”

“Put me on,” Rey snapped. 

“I’ll be there,” said Anakin. “I won’t let any harm come to you.”

“I know,” said Padmé warmly. “I trust you. I’m so happy your mother’s alright. We’ll get through this.”

“Put me on,” said Rey again. “Kriffing put me on, so I can fix this.”

“I’m coming,” said Anakin, and hung up the comm. Then he turned his attention onto her. “Go to sleep, Rey,” he said, slowly.

“Kriff off,” said Rey, concentrating on her shields. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, stepping closer. “But you need to sleep.”

“I need to talk to him,” she insisted. 

“Sleep,” said Anakin intently, sending a tidal wave of Force compulsion her way. She held on, but only barely. Her legs were shaking.

“Please don’t,” she said. “You’re not thinking straight.”

“You should sleep,” he said again, and she shut her eyes, grounded herself in the Force, and braced for the onslaught. But instead of a Force compulsion, she felt a stinging pain at the back of her neck. He’d hit her, the kriffing bastard.

_Rey?_ said Kylo’s voice. _Rey? Answer me, Rey._

_I am very, very angry at you,_ she managed to bite out, and then she slept.

* * *

Of course, Kylo’s encrypted comm had to ring in the middle of his carefully-engineered hostage situation. He turned the volume down before answering, because Padmé wasn’t even being subtle about intending to eavesdrop.

“You two owe me a big explanation,” said Siri Tachi. “Not to mention, an itemized list of reasons why I shouldn’t tell the Jedi Council that I’ve found their Sith.”

“Nice to hear from you, too,” he mumbled. “Technically, we told the truth.”

“You left out some crucial details,” Siri deadpanned. “Like the part where you purposefully hid your Force signature so I didn’t realize you used the Dark Side. I had to figure out which one of you was dark by throwing out an incredibly irrelevant remark about yellow eyes, in the hope that Kenobi would drop a gendered pronoun when he answered. So that was fun.”

“I’m a little occupied at the moment,” said Kylo. 

“Good for you,” said Siri. “You have me keeping information from my crèchemate and my Padawan. I’d say I get the right to ask a few questions.”

“I can do yes or no answers,” said Kylo, glancing at Padmé, who was perched innocuously on the only chair in the hut. 

“Have you ever worked for an organized Dark Side effort?” she said. “Like the Sith?”

“Yes.”

“Do you still?”

“Yes and no.” He was leading an organized Dark Side effort, not working for one. Admittedly, he was the only member of the Dark Side effort, at the moment, but that wasn’t what she had asked.

“Elaborate.”

“No.”

“Kriff you,” said Siri, with feeling. “Are you currently rescuing Skywalker’s mother?”

“Yes and no.” Rey was—had already, actually. He wasn’t.

“Have you or Rey run into Anakin or Senator Amidala?”

“Yes.”

“Are they alright?”

Padmé looked alright, at least. “Yes.”

“Do you know where Rey is?”

“Not at the moment, no.”

“Is she Dark?”

“No.”

Siri took a deep breath on the other end of the line, “Do you have any intention of coming back to the Light? Or somewhere in between?”

“No,” he said. “You’re the fourth person to ask me some version of that question today.”

“Do you see why I’m extremely wary about even turning a blind eye to the two of you, let alone helping you ever again?” she said pointedly.

“Give me two hours to resolve my current situation, and my associate and I can talk about this with you candidly,” he hedged. “I promise you that we don’t intend any harm to your organization.”

“You’re going to do better than that,” said Siri. There was a steely undercurrent to her tone that reminded him, oddly enough, of his mother. “I don’t like the Council, and I don’t think they’re equipped to handle this. But I will hand both of you to Master Yoda, on a platter, without blinking an eye, unless you do what I say.”

“Which is?” said Kylo warily

“I’m going to give you a list of names,” said Siri. “I’ll holofax it to you tomorrow. You and Rey are going to sit down and write out everything that you know happened to those people.”

“That’s too dangerous,” said Kylo. “If that got into the wrong hands, I can’t even imagine the damage that could result. No deal.”

“I’m not done,” said Siri sternly. “You’re also going to tell me who the other Sith is.”

“No,” said Kylo flatly. “Absolutely not.”

“Look at it this way,” said Siri. “Before I learned you’d been posing as a Light user to trick me, I was willing to trust you to make good decisions. Now that I have pretty substantial evidence that your decisions are shit, I want a chunk of your information, so I can make decisions by myself.”

“Do you enjoy creating paradoxes?” Kylo asked. “Because your second request is going to cause several.”

“I’m not going to expose the Sith Lord,” said Siri impatiently. “Obviously, he has a contingency for that sort of thing, and it’s not worth blowing his cover until we find it and shut it down. But have you ever considered what would happen if you and Rey both get captured by him?”

“We’d break out,” he said. 

“Someone besides the two of you needs to know this information,” Siri argued. “Right now, if you go down, it goes down with you.”

Kylo didn’t listen to her. He was too focused on the hum of a speederbike, getting steadily closer. “I can’t talk any more now,” he said, automatically. “I’ll call you when I have time to negotiate this.” 

“Listen, I’m on my—”

He hung up the comm.

“Don’t move,” he told Padmé. “Don’t talk.”

“You don’t need to threaten me, Han,” said Padmé. Senators were required to take basic training in hostage negotiation, he remembered. “If Anakin or the Jedi Order did something to you, we can try to figure it out. There’s no need for lightsabers.”

Kylo could feel Skywalker’s approaching Force presence. He seemed unsettled, skittish and wild, with an overwhelming, dark anger focused almost entirely on Kylo.

The speederbike parked outside the house. It held two riders, squeezed tightly together to fit, and a third, limp form slumped over the back of the bike. The riders dismounted, and the first supported the second over to the door of the hut, then went back to carry the third.

“You want to talk?” said Anakin Skywalker’s voice through the door, low and menacing. Kylo heard his saber ignite. “Alright. Let’s talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: the Sort-of-Sith vs. Not-yet-Sith matchup you’ve been waiting for! Who will win? Will Padmé’s eyes finally roll right out of their sockets at the ridiculousness of these trigger-happy idiots? Elsewhere, Obi-Wan makes a long-distance comm call, we finally meet my depressed perfectionist cinnamon roll Ferus Olin (aka an OG LGBT icon of Star Wars canon before Disney Thanos-snapped him and his husband away), and Rey and Kylo try to have a real, live reasonable conversation in which nobody storms away.
> 
> Love you all!!!  
> —Liv


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A super-long chapter, for all your social distancing needs! Stay safe out there, guys!!
> 
> (And an advance disclaimer—the lightsaber duel you are about to read was written by a pacifist with no actual sense of how fights work...thanks go out to Scribe1019 who talked lightsaber fights with me in the comments for literal weeks haha)

The door swung open almost immediately. The Sith stood, framed in the doorway and cloaked in black. “Outside,” he growled.

“And leave your friend unconscious, out here?” Anakin pointed out. He had to keep control. Everything that mattered in his life had been threatened within the past twenty-four hours: Padmé, his mother, his apprenticeship, his life—but if he lost focus for even a moment, he would be dead. “You must be new to the desert. She’ll freeze.”

“Take them inside, then,” said the Sith coldly. “I’m not trying to keep your mother from receiving what passes for medical attention in this hellhole. I’m trying to keep you from utterly destroying this hut when you inevitably try to attack me.” He stepped aside.

“Let’s go inside,” Anakin said, turning off his saber and draping his mother’s arm over his shoulders. She was so light, lighter than a humanoid should be. She was always tall and strong and sturdy, in his memories, and now he could probably lift her in one arm. But she would be alright. She had to be. “You remember Padmé, right?” His mom had to believe he could deal with the Sith, or she’d try to make him leave before it came to blows. 

“Of course,” said Shmi, smiling unsteadily. “Your handmaiden friend.”

“Senator, now,” said Padmé, coming up on the other side of Shmi to take her weight. “It’s been a long time. I have the bed ready for her, Ani.”

“What happened?” Anakin whispered. “How did he get in?”

“I unlocked the door,” said Padmé. “He said he needed help, and I couldn’t let someone freeze to death out there!”

“Padmé, he could have killed you. I don’t know why he didn’t.”

“I’m alright,” said Padmé. “Listen, you have to be careful of him. Don’t duel him, Anakin.”

“I have good training,” Anakin said, trying to be reassuring. “There’s not enough time to get reinforcements to the Outer Rim, and I can’t let them get away, or we might not track them down again for months. Who knows how many people they’ll kill in that time?”

“Ani, this is not the way to prove yourself.” 

“Obi-Wan killed a Sith when he was a Padawan,” Anakin argued. “I know I’m powerful enough.”

“Someday,” said Padmé, pursing her lips, “we are going to need to compare recollections of the Battle of Naboo. I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”

“This is what I’m trained for,” said Anakin. “Protecting the innocent. I would be a disgrace to my vows, my position, and the Order, if I didn’t try, at least.”

His mom looked at Padmé. “This man is dangerous?”

“We don’t know for sure,” said Padmé diplomatically. She shot Anakin a glare over his mother’s head as they settled her down. “There’s a chance that he’s very dangerous.” She swept away, probably to go retrieve the girl Rey.

“His friend helped you,” his mom said, looking straight into his eyes. “You owe her. If he’s dangerous, then it was dangerous for her to come help us.”

“Save your strength,” said Anakin. “You already told me that I shouldn’t have hit her, and I already told you that I had to. It was to save Padmé.”

“You could have talked to her,” his mom insisted from the bed. “She wanted to help you.”

“And she’s hardly an innocent!” Anakin continued, feeling his face grow hot. “She knew that you were going to be taken, Mom, which means that she almost certainly works with whoever ordered it. She could have tried to stop them before you got hurt, and she didn’t. Just because she had a change of heart doesn’t mean she’s suddenly not a threat.”

“Anakin,” his mom said. She was using her _I-am-the-adult-and-you-are-the-child_ voice. It was one of the only voices of hers that he hadn’t missed, mostly because Obi-Wan used it on a daily basis. “It is incredibly hard to stand up to someone doing an evil thing. It is even harder if you care about the person you’re standing up to. You don’t understand other people’s lives, and that means you don’t get to judge them for the choices they’re forced to make.”

“But I understand what’s right,” said Anakin, feeling suddenly helpless. “And if he really knows what’s right, he’s choosing to ignore it. It’s my duty to end this before more people get hurt.”

Padmé came back in, carrying Rey’s limp form. She set her on the chair. “Did your mother talk sense into you?” she said, sternly.

“Don’t start with this again, Padmé,” said Anakin wearily. “You’re not a Jedi. You don’t understand.”

“You’re right,” said Padmé, stiffly. “I’m not. I’m the person you’re supposed to be guarding. Which means that right now, you answer to me. I’m ordering you, Padawan Skywalker, to get the enemy Force-wielders out of this house, and get me back to Coruscant.”

Two could play at that game. “This is an emergency,” said Anakin. “My mission to keep you safe overrides your authority, Senator. You are under my protection, which means you need to follow my orders, and I can’t keep you safe if you’re continually contradicting me. If you don’t like the way I do my job, you can complain to the Council when we get back.”

Padmé looked for a moment as if she was tempted to comm the Council then and there. “You should be a senator,” she said finally. “You have the rampant hypocrisy down perfectly.” Then she sat on the bed, facing away from him, and started to check Rey’s pulse.

“Padmé, you’d agree with me if you understood,” he pleaded.

“I understand plenty,” said Padmé coldly. “I understand that you’re endangering your mother to impress the Council and get revenge on the Sith for something you’re not even sure he did. I also understand that you’re insulting me and belittling my not-inconsiderable combat experience to do it.”

“I’m trying to protect you, Padmé,” he tried. “I’m trying to protect everyone.”

“If you get killed,” said Padmé, “you won’t be able to protect anyone.” He left her there and went outside. 

The Sith was waiting, his features inscrutable. His hand was on his saber.

“What did you want to talk about?” said Anakin.

“Nothing,” said the Sith. “I wanted you to not kill my associate, so I took steps to secure your cooperation.”

“I don’t kill,” said Anakin.

“You will,” said the Sith impassively. 

“What am I supposed to call you?” said Anakin. 

“Kylo Ren,” said the Sith. He was a little younger than Obi-Wan, with strong, imperious features that looked vaguely Corellian.

“Your Sith name,” said Anakin impatiently. “Darth what?”

“Darth nothing,” said Kylo Ren. “Not all users of the Dark Side are members of the Sith Order.”

“Were you Maul’s master?” he asked.

“I’m a little young for that.”

“Age is a deceiving number,” said Anakin. “Do you know the other Sith?”

“Not personally,” said Kylo Ren.

“But you know who he is,” Anakin pressed.

Ren laughed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“No,” said Kylo Ren, and left it at that. They stared at each other for a moment.

“Why me?” said Anakin, eventually. “Why my mom? Why Padmé?”

“I don’t know,” Ren replied. “Why would it be you, Chosen One?”

Anakin felt a slow chill along the back of his spine. “Only the Jedi Council is supposed to know that,” he said slowly. “Who told you?”

“Maybe it’s common knowledge to certain groups of people,” said Ren. He seemed more wary, suddenly, as if Anakin had come close to discovering something Ren wanted hidden.

Anakin forced himself to breathe. If the Dark Side believed he was the Chosen One, the attack on his mother would be merely the first of many. They wouldn’t stop until she was dead. Now that he’d shown them he could be influenced by threats to Padmé, she’d be targeted as well. 

More frighteningly, if Kylo Ren knew about the prophecy, the odds were high that someone on the Jedi Council was passing information—willingly or not—to the Sith. 

“Your friend Rey knew my mother was going to be attacked,” said Anakin. He needed to sound calm and detached. He felt, momentarily, as if he was somewhere outside himself, watching his skin flush like a youngling on the verge of a tantrum. “Did you order it done?”

Ren didn’t respond for a moment.

“Answer me!” Anakin yelled, igniting his saber. The dry air stung his throat. The sands below his feet flashed blue.

“No. I don’t know who ordered it.”

“I don’t believe you,” Anakin said. He could hear his own breathing getting louder and faster. His pulse pounded wildly in his ears. It was just him, and Kylo Ren, and the fierce, terrible weight that pressed on his shoulders and clutched at his chest.

“Witness the vaunted self-control of the Jedi,” Ren said distantly. “Master Kenobi must be so gratified to see the results of his instruction.”

“You’re not worthy to speak his name,” Anakin growled. “He’s killed your kind before.”

“You’re losing your temper,” Ren sneered. “If you want to fight me, go ahead.” 

“What do you want from me?” said Anakin. His mind raced with terrifying possibilities—to kill him, to siphon the Force from him, to use him as leverage on the Council, to force him to spy on the Council, to turn him to the Dark Side and make him kill everyone he’d ever known.

“Nothing,” said Kylo Ren. “You’ve brought Rey back without losing your temper and trying to attack her. I have no more use for you at the moment.” He paused. “Go enjoy your time with Senator Amidala, and your mother. You’re lucky that they’re both alive.”

“Is that a threat?” Anakin managed to bite out. 

Kylo Ren considered the question for a moment. “No,” he said. “It’s not. I’m sure the Council would welcome you back with open arms if you killed a Sith. They might even overlook this little adventure, and what it says about your attachments.”

Anakin felt himself laugh, dry and hollow. “But you won’t forget.”

“I didn’t say that, Chosen One,” Ren said.

Anakin was attacking before he was even aware of it. He launched himself at Ren, readying his saber for a vicious downstroke aimed at Ren’s collarbone. He felt as if his blood was boiling in his veins, bubbling and hissing, propelling him forward.

Ren sidestepped the slash and ignited his own saber in a single, fluid motion. “I thought Jedi were in control of their emotions,” he commented. 

“I thought Dark Siders were capable of basic saber engineering,” Anakin retorted, trying to spot weak areas in Ren’s guard. He lunged in to try for a hit to the ribs on Ren’s non-dominant side, but Ren parried the blow, and the next three Anakin tried.

“I was under the impression,” said Ren, “that you would be a good opponent. I heard stories about you before I ever touched my first training saber.”

“I’m flattered the Sith take such an interest in me,” Anakin said, catching Ren’s blade with his own and trying to force his wrists to bend back. “I’d say the same was true of you, but the Jedi Order chooses not to dwell on the future.”

“Clearly,” said Ren, breaking the blade lock and jabbing quickly towards Anakin’s neck. It was the sort of stroke that would have earned Anakin a lecture about honorable attack zones, and Anakin barely got his saber up in time to deflect. He felt as if there was a rubber band in his lungs, stretching further with every second. 

He feinted towards Ren’s left and spun farther at the last second to try to attack Ren’s unprotected back. But Ren made it around to block him at the last second. He parried the blow and slashed quickly at Anakin’s right side a few times. Anakin blocked the blows mechanically. This, he could do.

Now that he was facing the hut, Anakin could see Padmé framed in the window, watching the duel disapprovingly. He had to keep her safe, no matter what that meant for him. He met Ren’s eyes with new determination. 

Then he froze, as a terrible, consuming pain bloomed across his side. He’d missed a block.

The rubber band in his lungs snapped. With a yell, Anakin flung himself at his opponent. His saber flashed into a side strike, strong enough to cut skin and bone and organs all together. Ren blocked, the muscles on his neck standing out with the effort.

With a lightning flash of clarity, Anakin noticed that Ren wasn’t used to fighting on the sand. His footwork was too heavy, and his boots sank infinitesimally with every step. Channeling the Force through his free hand, Anakin pulled a fistful of sand from under Kylo Ren’s feet, and set it to fly at his eyes in a stinging blizzard. His opponent stumbled, hard, and blinked furiously to clear his vision. Anakin pressed the advantage with a deep cut to Ren’s saber arm, just above the elbow. It connected, and Ren dropped his saber for half a second, but he caught it midair before Anakin could pin him unarmed.

They traded a few more flurries of blows. Anakin felt a wild laugh bubble up in his throat. This wasn’t like sparring back at the Temple, or slashing at Trade Federation droids with Obi-Wan. He could feel the Force, suffusing his every motion, lending strength to his limbs. Power came sparking, quickly and easily, to his fingertips. It felt like the world was on fire, and he burned brightest of all. 

Anakin saw the opening in Ren’s guard—a hitch in his motion as he dodged a forwards cut that left his chest unguarded—before Ren noticed his own error. He attacked with barely a conscious thought, yanking nearly half a cubic foot of sand and sending it flying into Ren’s face. Kylo Ren stumbled backward, and Anakin leapt on him, snarling, and plunged his saber down towards Ren’s heart. 

Ren caught the blow on his crossguard, inches from a kill. They struggled against each other a while, scrabbling for purchase in the sand. Anakin met Ren’s eyes with fierce determination. He wasn’t going to let himself lose today. There was too much on the line.

Ren stared back, his eyes wide. Then the line of his brow hardened, and he slashed downwards, without breaking the saber lock. 

Anakin screamed. His saber fell away, forgotten, onto the frigid desert sands. He clutched his hand convulsively around air as his footing slipped. He fell backwards, hard, and closed his eyes. _I’m sorry,_ he sent Obi-Wan over his bond. 

“I left that opening on purpose,” Ren said. “You’re overconfident, even for a Jedi.”

Anakin coughed convulsively. “Just get it over with,” he muttered, choking on the sand that lined his throat. 

“I intend to,” said Ren. “I wish I could say you were a worthy opponent, but—” He shrugged wordlessly. “Until we meet again.”

Anakin felt the Force press in on his brain, crowding in and surrounding his thoughts. Then everything went suddenly silent.

* * *

Obi-Wan was under strict orders from Siri to actually sleep (“in case you were wondering, meditation does not count, Kenobi”) on the flight to Tatooine. But there was a clutching feeling around his chest that wouldn’t go away, no matter how many times he consciously relaxed the major sources of tension in his body.

Anakin was in danger. That was the only explanation. He’d tried to probe, cautiously, through their training bond, but ever since Senator Amidala’s arrival on Coruscant, Anakin’s shields had stayed up, the way they sometimes did for a few hours after he’d woken from a nightmare.

Obi-Wan was hardly qualified to judge him. His shields had never improved so quickly as they did when he was deployed to Cirrus with Siri for the first time. Then, later, they’d leaped forward a whole level of mastery during his year on Mandalore.

He understood Anakin’s desire for secrecy and privacy. Even after ten years of mentorship, it was sometimes still hard for his Padawan to realize that Obi-Wan was trying to help him improve, not catch him slipping up and turn him in to the Council. And again, that was a feeling that Obi-Wan vividly remembered being on the other side of. He’d been so afraid, even years after the fallout from Melida/Daan, that Qui-Gon would take any excuse to put him on probation again.

Still, no matter how much he understood Anakin’s insecurity, there was a part of him that wished that his apprentice would just kriffing tell him things sometimes.

Obi-Wan sighed, sat up, and decided to give up on sleep for the moment. He pulled a cloak on over his night tunic and padded out to the ship’s common area. 

It was empty, thank goodness. Obi-Wan liked Ferus Olin, even if he wasn’t the sort of Padawan anyone had envisioned Siri taking, but the young man was brutally honest and incredibly unsubtle. If he ran into Obi-Wan, Siri would know immediately, and then she’d shoo him back to his cabin like a misbehaving chrécheling. 

He would sleep, eventually. No matter what Anakin had gotten himself into, Obi-Wan couldn’t help him until the ship made planetfall. His concern was natural, but not particularly beneficial in an unstable situation like this one. He would release it into the Force, where it belonged, and move on. He would feel much less anxious if there was something that he could do to help Anakin now. Direct intervention was an impossibility, but there had to be something he could do that would ease his Padawan’s concerns, without breaking his mandate as a part of the Order.

Then he remembered the print he’d made of the warrior in Mandalorian armor. If the Senator’s assassin could be found and brought to justice, Anakin wouldn’t need to do foolhardy things like wildly running off to the Outer Rim to take on two rogue Force-users alone.

Before he could think better of it, Obi-Wan dialed the only Mandalorian holocomm frequency that he still remembered. As it rang, he searched within himself for peace and composure. He would need all of it to get through this conversation with his dignity unscathed.

“This is a private comm frequency,” Satine Kryze said bluntly, her image flickering onto his display. She looked exactly the same as always—cool, put-together, and ready to verbally eviscerate any and all challengers without displacing so much as a hair. “Who’s calling, and who did you kill to obtain the frequency?”

Belatedly, he clicked his video transmitter on. “This is Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi of the Jedi Order,” he announced.

Satine looked him up and down. “Congratulations on your knighthood,” she offered after a moment. “I was glad to hear of the promotion, although sorry to learn the circumstances.”

“Thank you,” he said. It came out sounding stiff and awkward. “I’m afraid I’m not calling to reminisce, as enjoyable as that might be, Duchess.”

“Clearly not,” said Satine, “seeing as you haven’t contacted me in at least ten years.” Her gaze was flinty. “You’re not stupid enough to assume I’m that forgiving. Now what does the Jedi Order want with Mandalore? I assume you’re calling to back up the Senatorial pressure.”

“Is the Senate pressuring you?” he asked, surprised. “I was told that Chancellor Palpatine was supposed to be an improvement over Valorum. In my experience, the people of Naboo are nearly pacifist enough to satisfy your ideals.”

“Stay out of politics, Obi-Wan. You don’t have the head for it.”

“I’m afraid the reason I’m calling is quite politically linked, unfortunately,” said Obi-Wan. “Do you know Senator Padmé Naberrie?”

Satine’s elegant eyebrow lifted a quarter-inch. “By reputation only.”

“I’m transmitting a holo-still to you now, Satine,” he said, scanning it with his data-feeder. “Can you tell me what you see?”

The image sprang into life on Satine’s end of the connection. Her face went still and utterly inexpressive. “Is Mandalore under suspicion of a crime?” she asked, with a hint of venom.

“The figure in that holo-still is wanted for questioning in an attempt on the Senator’s life,” he hedged. “You’re the only Mandalorian I could think of to call. If you can tell me anything, you’d be doing a great service to the Republic.”

“Do I look like someone who cares to serve the Republic?” Satine snapped. “You’ve been severely misled, Knight Kenobi. Someone’s trying to frame Mandalore by dressing up in durasteel armor and throwing darts around like a two-credit mercenary rebel.”

“No one,” said Obi-Wan, taking calming breaths through his nose, “is accusing your people of stirring up galactic unrest—wait, Satine, did you say durasteel? I thought Mandalorian armor was always made of Beskar.”

“That’s clearly not Beskar,” said Satine, with some irritation. “The sheen is completely wrong.”

“Would that be a matter of local variation in metal availability?” Obi-Wan pressed. 

“No,” said Satine. “Obviously not. Only third-rate mercenary hacks use durasteel. Anyone using durasteel on a design like that has no care for maneuverability and a very powerful engine in their jet pack.”

“Tell me about the design,” said Obi-Wan.

“Concord Dawn variant,” said Satine. She squinted. “See the shape of the shoulders? If there’s a clan signifier, I’m not seeing it.”

“Do you have any idea why a Mandalorian is trying to take out opposition to the Military Creation Act?”

“Yes,” said Satine. Her lips thinned rigidly. “This is clearly an affront to Mandalore’s government. Whoever he is, he’s clinging to the old ways of our system. He wants to fight, and he wants an army to do it in, against the will of our people. Or, he’s an outsider, appropriating the trappings of our culture to stir up suspicion and resentment. Either way, I want him extradited,” she declared.

Obi-Wan resisted the urge to rub his chin in frustration. “Satine, you know that I don’t have the authority to grant you that.”

“I know,” she said. “But you will tell the Senate to respect Mandalore’s claim to justice. Unless you’d rather I come to Coruscant myself to harangue the Council and the Senate into honoring the jurisdiction of a sovereign planet—a drastic measure that would, in a minimally functional galaxy, be utterly unnecessary.” She got louder and more animated with every sentence, as if she was trying to sway a crowd with merely the sound of her voice.

“I understand your concerns,” said Obi-Wan, trying to sound reasonable in the hope that she would calm down and realize that he wasn’t her enemy. “I sympathize, Satine, really, and if it was up to me, I’d let you have him in a heartbeat. You know that. But you have to recognize that the Senate has a claim. One of their own was targeted.”

She scoffed. “The Senate want to use this incident to scare the weak-willed stragglers among them into voting for their precious Military Creation Act. Or do you deny that?”

He thought a moment. “My personal political opinions aren’t relevant, Satine. I serve the Council, the Council carries out the will of the Senate, and the Senate speaks with the voice of the people.”

Satine looked unaccountably far-off and sad. “Is that so?”

“Or so I’m told, at any rate,” he added lightly.

She stiffened. “You’ve changed,” she said. “A great deal. You used to have ideals to back up your pretty words, Obi-Wan.”

He sighed. “The whole galaxy has changed, except you. Don’t you think that says something?”

“That I’m the only one left who cares?” she said, as defiant and righteous as ever. 

“Or that you’re both stubborn and blind,” he said. 

“Did you call intending to insult me, or did it just happen by accident?” Satine asked, her voice dangerously low.

“For a pacifist, you’re awfully keen on picking fights,” he retorted.

“Non-violence does not equal ambivalence,” she said defensively. “The Galaxy has its fair share of violent ambivalence from you, Knight Kenobi.”

“I’m not ambivalent,” he insisted. “I just care about different things. I don’t have the time to try to reform the galaxy anymore.”

“Yes, I know, you’re thirty-six and you’ve put away such childish things as giving a kriff about moral integrity to focus on Padawan-rearing and properly carrying out your function as a Republic lapdog,” Satine dismissed. “Will you tell the Senate and the Council that I want extradition rights?”

“I’ll tell them, but it’s difficult for them to have confidence in the justice system of a government whose policy towards criminals is ‘out of sight, out of mind’,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Satine leaned forward on his display. “As I’ve explained a million times to everyone else who’s tried asking, exile is surely preferable to death, and long-term incarceration represents an obvious risk to Mandalore’s law-abiding population,” she began. Then she stopped and looked him over again. “You look terrible,” she said sharply. “How inhumanely is the Council exploiting your willingness to work? I could see if any other planetary leaders are interested in standardizing mandated leave time for Jedi to align with sentient rights guidelines.”

“I’m worried about my Padawan, not a victim of sentient rights abuse,” said Obi-Wan. 

“Are you sure there isn’t an overlap between those categories?” Satine said, only half-mocking. 

“You tell me. I’ve spent the last decade realizing that I must have driven Qui-Gon halfway out of his mind,” Obi-Wan sighed. “You never really appreciate your Master until you have a Padawan of your own, I suppose. Though I’m not sure there’s an Initiate in the Order capable of putting Anakin through the worry he’s given me.”

Satine smiled. “To turn the words of Master Jinn against you once more—the Force will find a way. Now, unless you have more questions about the attempt on Padmé’s life, I’m afraid I’ve been putting off my appearance at the reception for the Alderaanian trade representative long enough. Try not to wait longer than a decade before making contact again, Knight Kenobi.”

“I imagine we’ll need to be in touch during the Senate negotiations for Mandalore’s extradition request,” he said.

Satine looked pleased and slightly grateful, although she covered it up immediately. “I’ll be severely disappointed if you roll over and give the Senate everything they want without a fight,” she informed him.

He smiled. “I only do that for individuals high in my esteem, Duchess. Enjoy the reception.” He cut the connection.

“Who was that?” said a voice behind him. Obi-Wan spun around to find himself facing a mildly groggy Ferus Olin. “Is she an attachment of yours?”

“That,” said Obi-Wan, “was the Duchess Kryze of Mandalore, and I was calling her for information.”

Ferus mulled this over. “Master Tachi said once that the difference between an informant and an attachment is that one of them tries to kriff you over without you realizing it, and the other is someone you wish would _realize_ that you’d like to kr—”

“Master Tachi is wrong,” said Obi-Wan severely. “And I hope you didn’t repeat her remarks in front of the Council.”

“What’s wrong with the Council?” Ferus asked, somehow both interested and defensive.

“Nothing’s wrong with the Council,” said Obi-Wan. “Master Tachi was making a joke, and the Council wouldn’t get it.”

“Okay,” said Ferus. “I don’t get jokes either. I thought you were supposed to be sleeping.”

“I’m working, which is just as important, Padawan. Go back to sleep.”

Ferus shook his head, looking determined. “I have orders, Master Kenobi. You have to get some damn kriffing rest on this voyage, or Master Tachi’s going to lace the Temple’s tea supply with sedatives for a week,” he said.

“Master Tachi didn’t mean that,” said Obi-Wan. “She’s overreacting, because she’s worried about me.”

“I knew that,” said Ferus, impatiently. “Like Padawan Skywalker is overreacting because he’s worried about Senator Naberrie.”

“Padawan Skywalker isn’t worried about Senator Naberrie,” said Obi-Wan, with firmness. If even Olin had noticed Anakin’s attachment, it was probably the talk of the Temple by now. “He’s worried about the assignment.” 

Ferus stared at him blankly. “No, it’s obvious,” he insisted. After a moment, he added, “At least, it seems obvious from my observations of overreactions among other Jedi. I don’t have field experience with overreactions, because my only friend is Master Tachi. It doesn’t make sense to worry about her.”

“You should make friends,” said Obi-Wan after a moment, mostly because that was what a responsible adult would say. “That way, when you have a Padawan and you’re worried about them, you’ll have someone to go find them with.”

“I’m too busy for friends,” Ferus explained, in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’m ahead of my class in history, political studies, meditation, community outreach, and saber training. And I tutor an Initiate class five days a week when I’m onworld.”

“You could be friends with Anakin,” Obi-Wan offered, half-heartedly. They’d definitely spent more time together on joint missions than he and Siri had at their age. The trouble was that those missions tended to involve Anakin abandoning the objective to follow a sudden intuition, which generally meant that Anakin abandoned Ferus as well. Anakin was not particularly subtle about his distaste for Masters’ pets as a social class, and Ferus was nothing if not a Masters’ pet.

“No,” said Ferus. “I don’t think Padawan Skywalker needs more friends. He already has Darra and Tru.” That, of course, was mostly true. Anakin’s particular brand of irreverence to the Temple Masters had won him a loyal supporter in the form of Tru Veld, a kind Teevan boy with a mile-long mischievous streak and some of the most dismal saber engineering scores the Temple had seen in a decade. Darra Thel-Tanis, as far as he could tell, suffered the company of Anakin and Tru because they were generally willing to help her break into the Classified Archives to access confiscated Separatist comm designs, if she used her talent for jamming to help them hijack the occasional racing speeder.

“You should ask Master Tachi for advice about this,” Obi-Wan tried. “Not me.”

Ferus shook his head. “She says she made friends by beating up assholes. But unprovoked violence is against the Code.”

Obi-Wan resisted the urge to sigh. “I’m sure Master Tachi’s mentioned that the Code is mostly a guideline.” He had been exactly this stubborn and Code-oriented once, just after the mission to Mandalore, when he’d been secretly terrified that Qui-Gon might put him on probation again. His Master had definitely not appreciated the nine months of stoicism, extreme overwork, silent judgment, and perfectionism that ensued.

“Yes, but everyone says that!” said Ferus. “It’s obvious that they just tell us that to keep people from leaving the Order before we’re mature enough to believe in it. The Code keeps us from Falling, which is why the most powerful Jedi follow it, to the letter, or terrible things happen.”

Obi-Wan tried to think of the best way to correct Ferus without getting on Siri’s bad side. Then he remembered that Siri had clearly shown no similar qualms about intervening with Anakin’s education. “Does Master Tachi always follow the Code?” he asked.

Ferus shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Yes,” he said, staring Obi-Wan straight in the face as if daring him to offer a contradiction.

“Well, you certainly didn’t, just then,” said Obi-Wan. “You lied, which was an emotional response dictated by your attachment to Master Tachi. That’s because a very small part of you thinks that I would get Master Tachi in trouble if I thought she’d ever so much as bent the Code for any reason whatsoever.”

“Master Tachi,” said Ferus seriously, “is an exemplary Jedi, and I’d be lucky to become as skilled and compassionate as her.”

“I agree,” said Obi-Wan. “But I’ve seen her bend the Code. She knows about several instances where I very nearly broke it. Are we lesser Jedi because we don’t bring those instances before the Council?”

Ferus looked uncomfortable. “You probably should, though. That’s why there is a Council. To advise Jedi, even after they become Knights and don’t have Masters to help them interpret the Code.”

“But are we lesser Jedi?” he asked. “For choosing to have mercy and patience for ourselves and each other?”

“No,” said Ferus, after thinking about it. “Master Tachi is trying to teach me to apply the concepts of restraint and moderation to myself. It’s not going very well, but I can tell that this is a related concept.”

“The other concept it relates to,” said Obi-Wan, “is trust. You need to trust your fellow Padawans, because one day your life will be in their hands. And you need to gain their trust in return. Think of it as making allies, not friends.”

“Like in diplomatic political negotiation,” said Ferus thoughtfully. “I need to build an area of common understanding, by beating assholes up.”

“You could start,” said Obi-Wan hurriedly, before Ferus realized that a well-respected Jedi had just given him permission to attack other Padawans, “by being understanding with Anakin when we find him. Don’t talk about the Code, and don’t tell him he was wrong. That’s my job as his Master.”

“Right,” said Ferus. “And I could offer to help Padawan Veld with his lightsaber.”

Obi-Wan started to reply, but his bond with Anakin suddenly flared open. He clutched the table behind him for support against the flash of intense pain. Then, just as quickly, Anakin’s presence was replaced by shifting, grey uncertainty. He’d been injured, then knocked out. Obi-Wan straightened up. “I’m sorry to cut this conversation short, Ferus, but something’s happened to Anakin. Go ask Siri if she can make this ship go faster. I’m going to meditate and try to find him.”

Judging by his past experiences with Anakin, they were in for a rough situation on Tatooine.

* * *

“We need to talk,” said Rey, as she woke up. “Where are we?”

“I stole a ship,” said Kylo, from a seat next to her. “We just took off. It’ll be a few hours to Ilum. I’m going to let Anakin wake up now.”

She struggled upright in the copilot’s chair. “Do you understand why I’m incredibly angry at you?”

“Yes,” he said. “To begin with, there’s the long-standing argument about my Force alignment. Then, I didn’t have faith in your ability to resolve the situation with Shmi Skywalker, so I manipulated Anakin into knocking you out to get both of you away from the Tusken camp. Then I dueled Anakin while you were asleep, jeopardizing my life, your life, and the plan we’ve staked our lives and our reality on. Am I missing something?”

“That’s about it,” said Rey tersely, leaning back into the chair. “Except that you’re being an asshole, and I am sick of you throwing off this mission because of your family issues.”

“I admit that I could have conducted myself with more tact,” said Kylo. “Just so you’re aware, I am also incredibly angry at you.”

“I saved Shmi!” Rey protested. “That was the entry on the list, not ‘kidnap Senator Naberrie’.”

Kylo’s fingers were clutching the joystick tightly. “If this is going to work, we have to trust each other. You ran off into a dangerous situation without a plan, because you were angry at me. We can’t afford to have that happen again.”

Rey bristled. “I ran off because there was only one bike, and not enough time for us to argue over who should take it. You know that.”

“We have to do better,” said Kylo seriously. “You saved Shmi, but everything else was a disaster. If we want this plan to work, we have to put our personal biases aside and communicate more effectively.”

“Great,” Rey snapped. “Fantastic. You can start communicating effectively by explaining why the kriff you found it necessary to duel Anakin.”

Kylo blinked sharply. “I needed time to get us offworld, without being followed. The only way I could think of to do it was to knock him out, so I goaded him to duel me while he was angry, so I could win easily. I was well aware of the risks involved, believe me.”

“It wasn’t your best moment,” said Rey. 

“Still not my worst moment,” he pointed out dryly. “This is the part of the conversation where you loudly tell me the incredibly brilliant move you would have made in my situation.”

“Talking seems to end less disastrously than saber duels, overall,” Rey pointed out. 

“Right,” said Kylo dryly. “Hello, Padawan Skywalker, I’m your Dark Side grandson from the future, nice to meet you. Now would you kindly return my one-time arch-nemesis and abstain from further attempts to kill and/or capture us? We’re rather busy interfering in the course of your life, and we’d prefer to go about our business uninterrupted.”

“You could have just told him not to follow you,” Rey said. “And made some sort of vague, Dark Side threat so he actually listened.”

Kylo shook his head. “You weren’t there, Rey. He wanted to attack me. He wasn’t going to let me leave, and a threat would only make things worse. If I held off on angering him, he’d be more calculated about trying to kill me. Less likely to make stupid errors.”

“So you gave him what he wanted, and dueled him,” said Rey. 

“It’s done, now,” said Kylo. “No use in regretting it.” She looked over at him, but he fiddled with the controls to avoid meeting her gaze.

“Why do I get the sense that you’re avoiding talking about something?” Rey asked.

Kylo cleared his throat. “I don’t know why you think that.”

She made a show of checking the ship’s chronometer. “Well, that ‘effective communication’ policy lasted a minute and a half. Probably a record for us.”

Kylo didn’t reply, but he punched the hyperspace button with barely restrained viciousness. She let him wait out the silence, occupying the time by carefully probing the bump on the back of her neck. It was painful, but probably not dangerous, and her vision was clear. She’d probably need to get bacta on it, just to be sure.

Finally, Kylo gave in. “He channeled the Dark Side,” he said, quietly. “I saw it in his eyes when we fought. I must have made him too angry.”

“So in trying to stop an event that eventually caused his Fall, you pushed him closer to Falling,” said Rey blankly. 

“Yes,” said Kylo stiffly. “I tried to fix it, though.”

Rey sank deeper into the copilot chair. “Not a particularly reassuring thought, but go ahead.”

“When I saw his eyes start to turn gold at the edges,” Kylo began, “I realized that I had to shock him out of it before he went any deeper.”

“So?”

He hesitated for a moment. “We were in a bladelock. My crossguard blocking his saber. If I let up, he would have stabbed me. So instead, I sliced down.”

Rey took a moment to work out the angles in her head. Then she swallowed, feeling a little nauseous. “How many fingers?”

Kylo squinted, trying to remember. “I didn’t get a good look. Three, around the knuckle, and the tip of his thumb? Better than a hand.”

“How can you be so callous?” she asked, feeling her voice rise.

“I wasn’t being callous,” he protested. “I didn’t have a choice. He was going Dark, and our job is to stop that.”

“Every action you took tonight made that job harder!” said Rey. “And I just don’t see why you did any of it!”

“I told you why,” Kylo snarled.

“You said that you dueled Anakin because he wasn’t going to let us go without attacking you. But he only wanted to attack you because you kidnapped his future wife! Why the kriff would you think that was a good idea?”

“I wasn’t thinking straight,” Kylo muttered.

Rey raised an eyebrow. “Somehow, I gathered that already. I want to know why you kidnapped Padmé, so that neither of us try something that incredibly dangerous again.”

“It was a poor decision,” said Kylo. 

“Tell me.”

“You have to remember that I was exhausted and on edge.” His finger was tapping the dashboard arhythmically.

“I remember,” said Rey. “I wasn’t in the best frame of mind at the time, either.”

“So when you left,” said Kylo slowly, “I was concerned. I couldn’t get in contact, because you were shielding.”

“So you kidnapped Padmé for her commlink?” said Rey. “Couldn’t you have tried to break into the main house and find an old radio or something?”

“Don’t play the fool, Rey. You have to know that I was worried about you!” he exploded. “I was terrified half out of my mind, thinking I wasn’t going to get to apologize. I was tired, and dehydrated, and I somehow managed to convince myself that if I didn’t get you out of there, you would die, and I’m sorry about that!”

The words hung in the air between them for a moment. He looked over at her, as if trying to gauge her reaction. She met his eyes quickly, then looked away and tried to think of something to say.

“Ben, that’s—you can’t do that.” Rey swallowed. “I appreciate the thought, but if this goes wrong, thousands of people could die.”

“I’m not pretending it was a good decision,” he said bitterly. “But as we’ve established time and time again, my power is linked to my emotions. In my situation, you probably would have let me die and gone about your business for the sake of the greater good, but I can’t do that.”

“You can’t just say I would let you die,” Rey broke in. “You don’t know that!”

“Everything about this conversation is suggesting that you would let me die to stop Anakin from Falling,” Kylo countered. “Starting with the fact that you’re arguing with me for caring about you enough to try to save you.”

Rey forced herself to take a deep breath. “We need to make some rules,” she said carefully. “So that next time one of us is in a situation like this, there’s a guideline.”

Kylo looked mutinous. “Fine,” he huffed. “It’ll pass the time to Ilum, at any rate.”

“To start, we don’t tell anyone that we’re from the future, unless both of us agree and one of the Force Ghosts says they can be trusted,” said Rey. 

“I can abide by that,” Kylo agreed, still sullen. “If we can’t agree on something, Anakin should break the tie. He’s the one most directly affected.”

It was actually a reasonable suggestion, Rey realized, with some surprise. “I can live with that. And I think we should stop trying to bring each other over to the opposite side. It’s unproductive, and it puts both of us in a bad mood.”

“Good,” said Kylo. “Ilum will be difficult enough, without you trying to drag me kicking and screaming back to the Light. Is that everything?”

“No,” said Rey firmly. “I don’t want us to put each other’s well-being ahead of the mission. No matter what.”

Kylo’s jaw twitched. “You can’t expect me to abide by that, Rey. Even your rebels might revolt at that order. FN-2187 would hand me my mother in chains if it would spare Dameron or Tico an hour’s suffering.”

“Finn is stronger than you know,” said Rey. “I told you already that I don’t have a reason to want you dead, and I stand by that. If you were in real danger, I would try to rescue you, no matter what.”

“So this rule is absolutely pointless,” said Kylo belligerently. 

“No,” said Rey, “We need this rule to discourage us from following each other into unstable situations unless there is actual danger. If there’s a real danger to one of us, there’s almost definitely a danger to the mission, and then it’s alright to intervene.”

“I’m not going to agree to this,” said Kylo. 

“You need to,” Rey insisted. “You could have pushed Anakin over the edge today.”

“But I didn’t,” he pushed back. “And you’re alive. I don’t think you understand, Rey. If one of us dies, the other is all alone here in the past. Maybe you think you can stop Anakin alone, but I know damn well I can’t.”

“It’s not going to come to that,” said Rey. “I promise.”

“Good,” said Kylo firmly. “Then the rule is unnecessary.” 

After a moment, she tried again. “Master Luke told me a story, once, about his time in the First Rebellion. Anakin captured your mother and father, and he tortured them, because he knew that seeing them in pain would make Master Luke careless enough to try to face him without finishing his training.”

“I know the story,” said Kylo, impassively. “My father was frozen in carbonite, my uncle lost a hand, and my mother and Chewbacca only escaped because Lando Calrissian changed his mind at the last second.”

“We can’t let that happen,” said Rey. “Everyone warned him that it was a trap. And he went anyway, and it made everything worse. Not just for him, but for all of them.”

He swallowed, slowly. “I heard that story from my father, the night before they shipped me off to the New Temple. But Han Solo saw a different lesson than the one Luke tried to pass on to you. He told me that story so that I knew that Luke was the sort of person who would rather have died than leave them there. And at that time, Luke was that sort of person. Maybe he became someone else, later. I didn’t know him when you did.”

Rey blinked, hard, and swiped her fingers quickly across her eyes. “He came back for your mother, on Crait,” she said, her throat tight. “Even though he knew he could die.”

Kylo nodded once, tightly. “I know.”

“I’m not going to let you die. And I’m going to try my hardest not to die and strand you in the past with only Force Ghosts for company,” Rey said. “But we have to be smart. That means trusting each other to handle things.”

He turned and stared at her. “Fine. I will agree to your rule, with one condition. Look me in the eyes right now, and tell me that you fully intend to do the same.”

She swung to meet his gaze. “I intend to.”

“No,” he said. His eyes bored into hers purposefully, in a way they hadn’t since Snoke’s throne room, maybe even since Starkiller. “Imagine it, Rey. You don’t know where I am. You’ve tried and tried to reach me, and you can’t. The Force Ghosts aren’t talking. All you know is that a few seconds of hesitation could spell the difference between my life and death. And if I die, you’re alone in your own head. Forever.”

As he spoke, she could feel the old, familiar loneliness curling up inside her. She set her teeth and tried not to think of a woman’s phantom hands brushing her hair and straightening her clothes. Her mother was gone, if that really had been her mother. She would probably be born, soon. 

He kept talking, even as her pulse began to drum loudly in her ears. She could feel his mind, pressing against hers, _shoving_ her brain full of the way he’d felt when she left. She could see her hands quivering on the armrest. “I might be dying, I might not be. You have no way of figuring it out for sure. I’m the last person alive who understands you, whether in the future or the past. Your friends are still out there, in some timeline or another, but they haven’t done this. Any of it. You won’t be able to talk to them about it.”

“You don’t know them,” Rey managed to say, her breath coming hard and fast. “They understand more than you think.”

“You’re right,” he said, contemplatively. “I don’t know them. But I do know that if you cared about following the teachings of the Jedi, you would have to give them up. By the logic of the Order, you should be ready to send them to their deaths without a moment of regret. But you can’t give them up, Rey. You’ll always come back for them, like Luke always came back for my mother. You’re not capable of letting people die. And that’s why you would never follow your own rule.”

“Get out of my head,” she snarled viciously. “Get out, or I will make you get out.”

“You’re not a Jedi,” said Kylo. “It’s not a bad thing. I’ve only known one person in my life who could have followed that Code of theirs, and you’re nothing like my mother. Stop trying to think and act like a Jedi would, and act the way you think is right.”

He released his grip on her mind, all at once. Rey reeled dizzily, adjusting to the sudden lack of pressure. Then she squared her shoulders, straightened her back, and stared him down. “If you ever,” she spat, “and I mean _ever_ , do that again, I will stab you, even if it means being alone here forever.”

“Understood,” he said. After a moment, he added softly, “I’m sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You really shouldn’t have,” she agreed. She closed her eyes, inhaled, and gathered up the terror, loneliness, and sheer, overwhelming anger she’d felt. As she exhaled, she released the feelings to the Force, drawing peace to fill their place. The suffocating knot in her chest loosened a little, and her mind felt more like her own. “But you’re probably right. I’m trying to be objective, but it’s not going to work. If you were in danger, I would probably jeopardize the mission as well.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Kylo said. “And believe me when I say that it won’t make you Fall.”

“It might,” Rey admitted, allowing herself a moment to feel her own uncertainty. “Every good emotion has a twin on the Dark Side. Love and jealousy, belief and fanaticism, and so on.”

“You’re not going to Fall,” he said again. “I know the Dark Side, Rey. You aren’t in danger of going that far.”

“Thank you,” she said, and meant it. “I’m sorry I tried to pressure you about the Light. You didn’t need that from me. And I’m sorry I kept my shields up. I did it because I was angry, and I wanted to shut you out. You’re not always good at respecting boundaries.”

“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “The other things, too. It’s been a while since my mind was my own. I forget, sometimes.”

“Forget what?” she asked. 

Kylo’s mouth twitched wryly, and he looked straight ahead, out into hyperspace. “That other people’s minds aren’t fair game for me. I’ll do better. And I’ll try not to push Anakin, again.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “We’ll figure it out.”

After a while, she let her hand drop to the table between them. Several minutes later, his hand dropped next to it. She moved her hand closer, so that their fingers overlapped, a little. 

When she looked up again, he was smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time...isn’t written yet lol. But I can safely say that it will include Aggressive Real Estate Agent Anakin, Kylo and Rey’s trip to Ilum, and more frustrated Obi-Wan.
> 
> I have chosen to characterize Ferus as a teacher’s pet with no brain-to-mouth filter, because as a teacher’s pet with no brain-to-mouth filter, I recognize only that type of person would, as a Padawan, try to tell Obi-Wan that Anakin was leaning towards the Dark Side, which is a thing Ferus literally canonically did. smh
> 
> Relatedly, a note on timelines: in legends, Darra was dead by now, Ferus had left, etc, but I want to use that plotline because I think it’s important to understanding Anakin’s Fall. So that’s going to start happening between movie 2 and the TCW era stuff, because I’m the writer and I say so haha.
> 
> Anyway, stay safe and healthy! I’m having lots of fun writing these idiots and reading your exasperated comments!
> 
> <3<3<3 Liv


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it feels like it’s been an age since I last posted! (2 weeks, but still!) Hope you all are staying healthy and happy!
> 
> Side note: holy cow I have 5K hits...not expecting that when I started this!!
> 
> Love you all!

Anakin woke up on the floor of the hut with the light of a distant explosion blooming behind his eyes.

“Nightmare?” said Padmé beside him.

He nodded and pushed himself upright on his elbow. A harsh wave of agony shot up his arm. “How’s Mom?” he asked, gritting his teeth against the pain.

Padmé grabbed his shoulders and helped him sit. Her face was disapproving. “Sleeping. Between her injuries, and your little stunt, we’re out of bacta. I stopped the bleeding from your hand, but we need to get you to a planet with a decent prosthetician before it heals wrong.”

“Obi-Wan’s coming,” Anakin said, numbly. He reached out to the Force and told himself that the pain in his hand was manageable. It went away, but only a little—just enough that he could breathe. “He’ll have felt it when I got knocked out. How long was I unconscious?”

“Ten minutes or so,” said Padmé, pursing her lips. “I ran up to the main house once Han left. They’re coming down now.”

“Han?” said Anakin, squinting.

“The Sith,” said Padmé. 

Anakin’s mouth went suddenly dry. “We need to get my mom off-planet,” he said. “Help me up?” 

“Where would she go?” said Padmé, taking some of his weight on her shoulder and supporting him over to the chair. “Will the Temple let you settle her family on Coruscant? It’ll be hard to keep it under wraps.”

“I was wondering if you might be able to find somewhere for her to stay on Naboo,” he said. “And I need you to promise me something, Padmé.”

“That depends on what it is,” said Padmé coolly. “I won’t promise to stand by and let you go fight a Sith alone next time something like this happens. He could have killed all of us, Ani.”

“I’m sorry—” he protested.

“No, you don’t understand,” said Padmé, cutting him off. “You should be dead right now. I should be dead right now. By all rights, he should have killed everyone here, and then waited for Obi-Wan to show up looking for you and killed him too. And all of that would have been your fault.”

“I’m sorry,” Anakin said again. “It was an impossible situation.”

Padmé looked for a moment as if she was going to argue the point further. Then she sighed. “Don’t do it again, Ani. What do you want me to promise?”

He swallowed and looked her straight in the eyes. “Don’t tell anyone that my mom was here, and don’t tell anyone where she is once we get her offworld. Our story is that I had a vision of the Sith, and I went to the only location I recognized from the dream. He was there, and I fought him and lost. My mother was already dead when we got here if anyone cares enough to ask, but he didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Why?” said Padmé. “And what are you going to tell Obi-Wan?”

“The same thing,” said Anakin. “Padmé, the Sith talked about an ancient prophecy, one known only to the Jedi Council.”

Her eyes widened as she processed the information. “There’s no other way he could have known about this prophecy?”

“None,” he confirmed. “Someone on the Council is working with the Sith. And until I know who it is, nobody can know that my mom is really alive.”

“Okay,” said Padmé, calm and efficient. “Naboo’s under a lot of Senate scrutiny right now, but I can talk to Bail and see if we can hide them on Alderaan.”

A sudden wave of blind, irrational panic overtook Anakin. “You can’t. The Death Star destroyed Alderaan,” he blurted. 

“What?” said Padmé, bewildered.

“I don’t know,” he said. He tried to retrace his thoughts, but all he found was the image of a planet bursting into a cloud of flame. He hadn’t realized, as an observer in his dream, that the planet was Alderaan. But now, thinking back, the person whose eyes he’d been seeing through had known it was Alderaan. Anakin must have shut out his thoughts, to maintain control over the dream. 

_She’s a rebel,_ something in the back of his mind whispered distinctly, as if it was part of a memory. He squinted at Padmé. The memory couldn’t be of her. Padmé was deeply, impossibly loyal to the Republic. It was an immutable fact to him, like the knowledge that the sky above Tatooine was blue, or that Obi-Wan was devoted to the Jedi Order above all else.

“Not Alderaan, then,” said Padmé slowly, eyeing him warily, as if he were a badly constructed thermal detonator. “We can give them some options, and aim to get them offworld before Obi-Wan arrives.” She paused for a moment and added, “Should I be warning Breha and Bail?”

“No,” he said immediately. “Not yet. When something is going to happen soon, I dream it over and over again. This felt much farther off.”

“Okay,” said Padmé. She didn’t look reassured, but the door opened before she could say any more, and the Lars family hurried inside. 

Owen lingered near Anakin and Padmé awkwardly, while Cliegg and Beru went to Shmi’s side. He had obviously been delegated to talk to them, and judging by his expression, he wasn’t looking forward to it.

“Thank you so much for letting us stay,” said Padmé warmly. “I’m sorry for the trouble we caused.”

Owen shifted on his feet. “Are you going to leave, then?”

“I think so,” said Padmé. 

“You should stay until she wakes up,” Owen said, without meeting her eyes. It was the sort of invitation that was obviously a formality, and Anakin bristled.

“Mom’s leaving too,” he said evenly, daring Owen to contradict him. “I’m taking her to Naboo.”

“Anakin!” said Padmé, grinding the heel of her boot into his toes. “Maybe we should all discuss this together, and find something that works for everyone.”

Owen’s face flushed angrily. “Hold on, who says you can take her?” he demanded. “She has a life here.”

“She’s in danger if she stays,” said Anakin implacably. The boot ground down further.

“We were thinking,” Padmé broke in sweetly, “that you might like to all go to Naboo for a few years. I have connections there. It would be a good life. Maybe even a better life.”

Owen’s jaw tensed. “Senator, we have a farm. We can’t just leave it. That’s our life, and I don’t care if you think you know a better one.”

“Listen to me,” said Anakin harshly. Owen was putting his mother in danger. He itched with the urge to lash out at his stepbrother, but Padmé looked as if she would blast him at the next sign of irritation. There was a throbbing pain in his head that made it hard to think, but he forced himself to take a breath and calm down. “I’m trying to make this clear enough for you to understand. My mother is going with us when we leave Tatooine. Padmé is generously offering all of you the chance to come with us as well.”

“Are you trying,” said Owen, slowly and incredulously, “to kill my father? He loves your mother, and he loves this farm. If you make him choose between them, you’ll break his heart.”

Anakin’s blood boiled. They were wasting time with this. “Owen, I would rather kill your father then let the Sith have my mother. If he loves her, he’ll kriffing well understand that!”

“Anakin!” said Padmé sharply. “Can I talk to you?”

“Why bother?” Owen snapped. “You’re both saying the same thing. He’s just saying it plainly.” He stepped back, anyway.

“Why are you provoking your only living relatives?” Padmé hissed at Anakin as soon as Owen turned away to join Cliegg and Beru by Shmi’s bed. “If it will make your mother happier to have them in her life, then we should be trying to get them to trust us.”

“Why would it make her happy to have them in her life? They _bought_ her,” Anakin said. “Do you realize that? She didn’t have a choice about having them in her life. Just because they took out her tracker doesn’t mean she’s free, and I swore I’d make her free.”

“And if she wakes up on the shuttle to Naboo and asks where they are?” Padmé asked. She didn’t wait for a response. “Think logically for a moment, Anakin. If you leave them here, what are their odds of survival? _We_ brought the Sith here, which means that it is our fault if they are in danger.”

“The Sith won’t go after them,” said Anakin. Even a Sith wouldn’t think he was actually attached to these interlopers in his family. “Just my mom.”

“You can’t break up her family without asking what she thinks about it,” Padmé argued. “If she wants a divorce when she wakes up, I promise to use every shred of influence I have to make it happen quickly. If she doesn’t want to see any of them ever again, I will relocate her to the opposite side of the planet in the middle of the night and station round-the-clock guards on her. But if she wants to see them and they’re _dead,_ because we brought a Sith here and left them to fend for themselves, there’s absolutely nothing I can do!”

“How can she know if she wants them in her life?” said Anakin. Padmé meant well, but she was freeborn. She didn’t understand what it was like. “She never had a choice. She hasn’t been completely free in over two decades, actually. Do you know why? Because that bastard over there thought he’d be magnanimous enough to kriffing _buy_ her!”

“Keep your voice down!” Padmé whispered angrily. “He’s right there.”

“I don’t care,” Anakin spat. “Anyone who thinks he can buy a person, for any reason, is scum. Why should I care what scum thinks of me?”

“Qui-Gon Jinn gambled with Watto for you,” Padmé said icily. “Was he scum?”

“He’s dead,” said Anakin harshly. “If Cliegg was dead, we wouldn’t even need to have this conversation.” 

Sometimes, he wished Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had helped him and his mother escape, instead, so that they could have been free without the burden of obligation to the Jedi, and without further supporting the slavery system. But Qui-Gon was as freeborn as Padmé, and Anakin had long since given up on blaming him. He couldn’t have known better. 

A small part of him still thought that Qui-Gon could have at least tried to know better. Thinking about that didn’t help him, though, so he tried not to do it often.

“Obi-Wan could land anytime, and we need to make it to the spaceport and get offworld before he finds our ship,” said Padmé. “If we’re leaving, we need to do it soon. So are we convincing them to come, or are we kidnapping your mother and fighting our way out with one miniblaster and a lightsaber you can’t hold?”

She had a point, of course. “You convince them if you think they really have to come,” said Anakin resignedly. “I’ll only make things worse. I’m too worried about her dying to pretend to give a kriff about what happens to their blasted farm.”

Padmé nodded stiffly. “Fine. Can you walk?”

“Yes,” he said, drawing the Force around him again to dull the screaming pain of his missing fingers. 

“Take one of the speederbikes and prep the shuttle,” she said. “If I can bring them, I will.”

“Thank you,” Anakin said, drawing himself up to his feet. He needed air. The tension in the hut was reverberating in the Force, so hard it made his head ache. It was probably residual interference from the battle. He couldn’t possibly be truly in control of himself, with all that Dark energy pulsing through him. 

He stumbled blindly outside and leaned against the wall of the hut, breathing in and out, tracing the disturbance in the Force back to its source and releasing the tension in the air around him as he went.

Finally, he found the center of the knot, a churning miasma of anger that turned his stomach. He reached out to it and began to coax it to unclench, bit by bit, keeping his breathing even and calm, the way Obi-Wan had shown him once, at a crime scene on Coruscant’s lower levels.

The last traces of disturbance unraveled and began to fade into the Force. On an impulse, Anakin seized one of them and kept hold. _Show me where this anger came from_ , he urged, just as Obi-Wan had that day, crouched beside the dead Bothan. Maybe he could get a sense of what this Kylo Ren was really after.

An image flashed into his meditation: Padmé, as he had seen her through the window during the duel. Then, his own face, smiling savagely, pressing the advantage, eyes tinted yellow at the edges. 

With a startled inhale, Anakin fell out of the trance. Kylo Ren wasn’t the source of the tension in the Force. 

Anakin himself was.

* * *

“They’ve left,” said Ferus, stepping inside the hangar. 

“Thanks, Padawan,” said Siri dryly. “We gathered that from the fact that their shuttle isn’t here.”

“I’ll try to contact Anakin again,” Obi-Wan offered wearily. Ferus and Siri exchanged a loaded glance. “What?” he asked.

“Don’t you think,” Siri began, “that maybe the Council needs to know about this?”

“We’re going to find him,” said Obi-Wan. 

“I know,” said Siri, placatingly. “But you can’t keep covering for him forever.”

“I failed him,” Obi-Wan explained. “I was supposed to take care of him, and he’s in pain, and I can’t find him. I’m not going to compound that betrayal by throwing him to the Rancors.”

“You can’t find him,” said Siri, “because he’s shielding from you, and you care enough about his mental autonomy not to pry further. Ferus, teaching moment. What do you suppose I would do to you, in Master Kenobi’s situation?”

Ferus looked uneasy. “You’d probably try breaking my shields, first. Then if that didn’t work, you’d fake pain on your end, to trick me into dropping my guard, so you could figure out where I was. Then you’d drag me in front of the Council and yell at me, and I might end up on probation, depending on how long I was gone.”

“See?” said Siri pointedly. “And why would I be so cruel, Ferus?”

“Because it’s your job to make me a better Jedi, but it’s also your job to keep me safe, and those two things can only happen if I’m somewhere you can keep track of me,” said Ferus. 

“To be clear, I am not happy with Anakin right now,” Obi-Wan said loudly. “Honestly, does your Padawan need to hear this conversation, Siri?”

“Fine,” said Siri. “Ferus, go ask around, see if they talked to anyone or gave any indication of where they were headed. We’ll go back to the ship and start prepping for takeoff.” She spun back to face Obi-Wan. “Better?”

“Much, thank you,” he said. “Now, please listen, Siri. The Council was not particularly thrilled to entrust Anakin to me.”

“I remember,” said Siri. “Master Gallia voted for you, but she was worried. Everyone was worried, Obi-Wan.”

“Don’t make this about my mental health,” he said defensively, leading the way up the gangplank. “You know as well as I do that Mace Windu would have been thrilled to ship Anakin off to the AgriCorps.”

“I know you don’t want to give him a reason to,” said Siri. “But Anakin is a senior Padawan. You’ve taught him well, but he has to learn sooner or later that his actions have consequences.”

“He knows that,” said Obi-Wan. “I’ve taught him that. He just thinks that some consequences are worth braving for a greater good.” He ducked into the cockpit and keyed in the preflight check commands.

“Have you thought about the future?” Siri asked, leaning over the back of the copilot chair and tapping idly at a datapad on the seat. “He’ll be Knighted in what, a year or two? And then, a few years later, he’ll have a Padawan of his own. Do you see the problem here?”

“It’ll be different when he has a Padawan,” said Obi-Wan. “Even Anakin isn’t irresponsible enough to bring a child into significant danger without thinking long and hard about how to keep them safe.”

“Are you sure about that?” Siri pressed. “Because he brought a _civilian_ into a manhunt for a Sith.”

“So did Qui-Gon,” Obi-Wan pointed out. “Really, Senator Naberrie hardly counts as a civilian at this point.”

“You know what I mean,” said Siri. “When was the last time that Anakin, on his own, made a responsible choice when an irresponsible one was available?”

Obi-Wan was saved from answering by a buzz on his comm. “I should take this,” he said.

“Sure,” said Siri. “Maybe it’s the Council, wondering where the hell you are.”

He ignored her and turned away. “This is Kenobi.”

“This is Kasse, Coruscant CentSec.”

“Captain,” he said. “Glad to hear from you. Toxicology scans came through?”

“Yeah,” said Kasse. “Sorry for the delay. Our systems didn’t register a known match. I called in a few offworld specialists to take a look at the stats over holocomm, just to make sure the computer wasn’t missing something.”

“I appreciate the effort,” said Obi-Wan. “What did they find out?”

“You’re looking at a Kaminoan sabredart,” said Kasse, pronouncing the syllables with obvious relish. “Except get this. Our systems don’t list Kamino as a known world. I followed up with my weapons expert, but he’s flummoxed. Said the only reason he recognized it is he met a Kaminoan a few years back at a casino on the Outer Rim. Fellow shot up the dealer when he lost.”

“I’ll look into it,” said Obi-Wan. “I’ve spoken to a Mandalorian contact of mine who says the armor’s durasteel, not Beskar.”

“So our man’s stupid, but not stupid enough to steal confiscated armor from the Mandalorian government,” Kasse concluded.

“And was on Mandalore as recently as twelve years ago,” Obi-Wan pointed out. “If he was offworld when the policy changes went through, he’d still have his Beskar armor. Durasteel means his suit was confiscated, so he built a new one.”

“What we need is a list of wanted Mando fugitives,” said Kasse thoughtfully. “Don’t suppose you have that sort of highly sensitive information lying around, though.”

“I’ll ask my contact,” said Obi-Wan. “Call me if you turn up anything new.”

“Copy,” said Kasse. “Happy hunting.” She hung up.

“So,” said Siri from behind him, with the lazy air of a competent predator. “You spoke with a contact on Mandalore.”

“Yes,” said Obi-Wan, turning back around to get the mockery over with.

Siri’s eyes gleamed. “And this contact—were they, say, a high-ranking political contact, such as, oh I don’t know...a Duchess?”

He sighed. “It was Duchess Kryze, yes. Does Quin owe you money?”

“No,” said Siri, “because neither of us thought it would take you twelve years to comm her!”

“She’s a busy woman,” Obi-Wan protested. “And besides, Jedi can’t simply go around comming high-ranking planetary leaders for a friendly chat. It would undermine our neutrality as an institution.”

“I completely agree,” said Siri. “What was she wearing?”

“Blue,” Obi-Wan answered automatically. 

“The color of her eyes?” said Siri knowingly. 

Obi-Wan glanced around the cockpit for a new topic of conversation. “Where did that datapad go?” 

“What datapad?” Siri asked, looking around.

He pointed to the copilot chair. “The one you were using, just a minute ago.”

“I didn’t use any datapad,” Siri said. 

“It was there, and when I turned around from talking to Captain Kasse, it was gone,” he insisted.

“Oh, that datapad!” Siri said lightly. “I picked it up.” Her eyes shifted towards the cockpit door.

“I thought you didn’t use any datapad,” Obi-Wan said slowly. She flinched, near-imperceptibly. “You were lying, then.” He sighed. “Siri, what were you doing with it just now?”

Siri looked stricken. “Please, just forget about it, Obi-Wan,” she said slowly.

“No, I want to know,” he insisted. “You can’t just lie to me. What’s the truth?”

“I was wiping a transmission I sent earlier and forgot to erase,” Siri admitted, her tone measured and even. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you any more,” she added. “I wish I could.”

Obi-Wan tried the most logical explanation first. “Wait—the Council’s sending you undercover again once Ferus passes his Trials?”

She shook her head. “I’d kick them halfway to Ilum if they tried. Believe me when I say you wouldn’t guess it.”

“Is it dangerous?” he asked. “Does Ferus know about this?”

Siri turned away and began fiddling with a loose rivet on the shuttle wall. “He doesn’t know, so don’t try pumping him. And it’s not dangerous, for me.”

“What does that mean?” said Obi-Wan. His anxiety mounted. “Is it dangerous for other people?”

“I can’t answer that,” said Siri. “Please, Obi-Wan, the less you know, the better.”

A sudden, terrifying suspicion overtook Obi-Wan. “Does this have anything to do with what Anakin is up to?” he demanded. 

Siri didn’t answer, which was an answer in itself. 

“Siri, there has to be something you can tell me,” he said, almost pleading but not quite. “I don’t keep secrets from you.”

Siri swallowed jerkily as she turned around. “Obi-Wan, you are one of the people who matters most to me in the world. Please—stop asking me about this. Nobody can know what’s on that datapad, but you, especially, can’t know what’s on that datapad.”

“Why?” he said, bewildered. “I’m not important.”

“I can’t tell you,” Siri said miserably. “But I’m asking you to trust that I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, or Ferus, or the Order. Can you do that?”

He studied her face closely and decided that she wasn’t lying. She was worried, and guilty, and concerned about what this would do to their friendship, but everything she had said was undeniably true. “Alright,” he said decisively. “One day, will you tell me the real story?”

“Yeah,” said Siri. “If this works out, I’ll tell you everything.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” he said. “Now come help me. We have a planet and a Padawan to find.”

“If you’re not going to do the smart thing and consult the Council, you should start with the Padawan,” Siri suggested. “The planet’s not going anywhere.”

He frowned. “I would, but my directive from the Council is officially to track the assassin. I’m worried about straying too far from it.”

“Find Anakin,” said Siri. “If you’re really going to cover for him, you’re already in the Council’s firing line, so minimize the damage and get him quickly. Then we can all go investigate this Kamino thing together.”

“Strength in numbers,” he mused. “Like the Zan Arbor missions.”

“That woman is a menace,” Siri groused, taking the copilot seat. Obi-Wan could see where she had stashed the blank datapad in her pocket, against the outline of the chair. He forced himself not to look and concentrated on finishing the preflight checks. Siri had been his first real attachment, and one of his closest friends for nearly twenty years. Trust was the least he could do for her.

At that moment, Ferus Olin burst into the cockpit, breathing hard. “Someone cut off his fingers,” he gasped. 

“Whose fingers?” said Siri.

Ferus slumped into a passenger seat. “I mindtricked the dock owner when he asked for a bribe. Anakin came through about an hour ago, with bandaged stumps on his hand.”

“Blast!” Siri swore. “That settles it, Kenobi. You have to update the Council.”

“Was Padmé with him?” Obi-Wan asked Ferus, forcing his breathing to remain calm. His pulse was rapidly racing out of control.

Ferus shook his head. “He loaded at least one passenger, but nobody could give me a clear description, which means he used a notice-me-not.”

“You can’t cover this for him, Kenobi,” Siri insisted. “What are you going to do, say he got them stuck in a shuttle door?”

“I’ll think of something,” Obi-Wan muttered. “Thank you for letting me know, Ferus.”

“No,” said Siri. “Tell the Council, right now. If they order you back to Coruscant, we’ll fake static and cut the connection.”

“You can’t just do that,” he protested. “They’ll know we’re lying.”

“Probably,” said Siri. “But at least they’ll know you’re out here, trying your hardest to get your kriffing idiot of a Padawan back and complete your mission.”

“You’re hardly the poster child for Council transparency, Siri,” Obi-Wan said pointedly. 

“Not here, Kenobi,” said Siri evenly, with a nearly imperceptible glance at Ferus. “You agreed to trust me, or did you forget already?”

“I agreed to trust you, not to be hypocritically lectured by you!” he snapped. “Will you please stop bothering me and let me find Anakin?”

“Is everything alright?” said Ferus behind them.

“We’re fine,” Siri replied irritably. “Kenobi’s just being a Wookiee’s ass, for no good reason.”

“Don’t insult me in front of your Padawan, Siri,” Obi-Wan said. “It’s unprofessional.”

“Why not?” said Siri belligerently. “I’m supposed to be teaching him the difference between right and wrong, and that means showing him when other people are wrong, even if those other people outrank him. Ferus, Kenobi’s being a Wookiee’s ass right now. Study the signs, and avoid following his example.”

“I’m going to go check on the astromech,” said Ferus, glancing between them uneasily. 

“Stay, Ferus,” said Siri. “I’m much less likely to punch him with a witness present.”

“Anakin’s training isn’t your business,” said Obi-Wan hotly, “and it most definitely isn’t your Padawan’s. Honestly, it’s no wonder he can’t socialize with his age group, if you give him access to sensitive information about other Jedi like this.”

“Leave Ferus out of this!” Siri spat furiously. “He’s only here because _your_ Padawan practically kidnapped the diplomatic official we were supposed to be guarding—a situation which I was incredibly understanding about, incidentally. And the only ‘sensitive information’ he’s getting about you and Anakin is the details of the reckless, idiotic banthashit you’re trying to let Anakin get away with. Ferus has proven, time and time again, that he is capable of taking responsibility for himself as an adult, so I choose to treat him like an adult!”

“You make him think he’s better than the others,” Obi-Wan insisted, “which is quite possibly the reason Anakin doesn’t enjoy being on missions with him!”

“Right,” said Siri sarcastically. “We can’t ever have a Padawan thinking he’s better than everyone else, oh no! I mean, if he thought that, he might think it was okay to go do whatever the kriff he liked, whenever he wanted to, and make everyone else clean up his mess!”

“I shouldn’t be here,” said Ferus quietly from the doorway. His jaw was trembling. “Let me know when we take off.”

“I’ll come find you when I’m done here,” said Siri. “We should talk about the absolute _idiocy_ Kenobi’s spouting, and why it isn’t kriffing true.”

“Okay,” said Ferus. He bobbed his head and left. Silence settled over the cockpit.

“I’m sorry, Siri,” Obi-Wan said finally, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m worried about Anakin, and it’s making me lose my focus. I’ll go meditate.”

Siri whirled on him with the fury of a Vornskr and jabbed her finger into his face. “No, Kenobi. I don’t care what issues you have, you leave my Padawan out of it.”

“I’ll apologize to Ferus,” he said.

“You are absolutely going to apologize to Ferus,” she snarled. “Listen, Obi-Wan. I get that you have Master issues. Goodness knows I would have them in spades if Master Gallia had treated me half as callously as Qui-Gon treated you.”

“Everything’s about Qui-Gon with you,” said Obi-Wan exhaustedly. “Can’t you let the dead rest?”

“Fine, live in denial,” Siri snapped. “Whatever you want to call this, go ahead and take it out on me. I’m your friend; I can deal with it. Or go see a mind healer, like everyone we know told you to, years ago.” 

“I’ll think about it, Siri—”

She wasn’t done. “Or even better yet, talk it out with Anakin when we finally catch up to him, and ask _him_ if he thinks you would abandon a teenager in a literal warzone and refuse to acknowledge him when he made it back against all the odds. Because even Anakin, as thick-headed and self-centered as he may be, knows that the answer to that question is, ‘no, of course not, that’s a kriffing stupid question!’”

“This isn’t about Melida/Daan,” Obi-Wan protested.

“ _Sure_ ,” said Siri skeptically. “Look, I don’t care how you fix whatever this is. But if you take it out on my Padawan one more time, we are not going to be friends anymore. Ferus is not your friend, he is not your Padawan, and he is not a mind healer. He is my student, and that means that you treat him kindly, at all times, no matter what. Telling him when he makes a mistake is one thing. Lashing out at him because you’re angry and worried is not just unprofessional, it’s downright cruel, and you’re better than that. Clear?”

“Clear,” Obi-Wan said. “Again, Siri, I’m incredibly sorry. I’ll apologize to Ferus as well.”

“Okay,” said Siri, calming down significantly. “Lecture’s over. Comm the Council, or don’t. I’m off to do damage control. Let me know where we’re headed when you figure it out.”

After she left, he opened his commlink and keyed in the Council’s frequency.

“High Council, this is Jedi Knight Kenobi reporting, aboard Temple Shuttle Twelve, Knight Tachi and Padawan Olin present but not on comms. Padawan Skywalker’s location is unknown at present, as is Senator Amidala’s…”

* * *

  
Rey and Kylo were a few minutes out from Ilum when their encrypted datapad buzzed. Rey picked it up. “Text transmission from Siri,” she announced. “It says, _‘Slight change of plans. Don’t holofax the list back—I’m sending an associate to pick it up. He’ll meet you on Ilum as soon as he can get there._ ’ What list?” she asked Kylo.

He sighed heavily. “Write her back and tell her we’ll only give our list to her. An associate is a nonstarter.”

She typed the message into the datapad and sent it. “What’s on the list?”

“Siri found out I use the Dark Side,” Kylo explained. “She wants information on the future in exchange for silence and further assistance.”

“Oh,” said Rey. “We can give that to her?”

“Do we have a choice?” said Kylo. “She wants to know what happened to her, her crèchemates, and Ferus. If knowing that screws up the timeline, it’s her fault.”

“Do you know what happened to them?” Rey asked.

“No,” Kylo admitted. “I’m beginning to regret sleeping through Master-Teacher Tano’s classes, trust me. But Obi-Wan will be able to give us enough information to tell her.”

“Right,” said Rey. 

“Also,” he added, “she wants to know who the other Sith is. She’ll have to rip my mind open to find it out, though.”

“Just tell her,” Rey suggested. “Siri’s not an idiot, and she’s putting herself in danger to help us. That way, if Palpatine makes a move, she can throw suspicion on him from within the Order.”

“Or,” said Kylo stubbornly, “Palpatine will realize that Siri’s figured him out somehow, and he’ll get her killed.”

The comm buzzed again. “Siri says, _‘Nice try. You don’t get to negotiate with me, kids. I’m the one with the power to hand both of you over to Yoda. My associate is better at keeping secrets than both of you idiots combined. Your choice. Trust in his silence, or trust in my ability to make your lives much, much worse.’_ ”

“She can’t call us kids,” said Kylo. “She’s barely older than me. She has no right to act condescending.”

“Technically, isn’t she nearly seventy years older than you?” Rey asked. 

“Only technically,” said Kylo. “Here’s an idea. What if we put Palpatine’s identity in, but we encrypt the whole document so thoroughly that her associate will need three teams of slicers working around the clock to get anything out of it but binary?”

“Okay,” said Rey. “But I should warn you that I’m not particularly talented at encryption.”

“Neither am I,” Kylo admitted. His mouth twitched with amusement. “I hoped you’d know how. I don’t want her to think she can push us around.”

“We also don’t want her to tip off the Council,” Rey pointed out.

“We’ll think of something,” said Kylo, coming out of hyperspace dangerously close to the planet.

Rey grabbed the sides of her seat. “Could you possibly have cut that any closer?” she asked.

“Old habit,” said Kylo cryptically, preparing to land.

Rey blinked in confusion. “It feels in the Force like I’ve been here before.”

“Yes,” said Kylo. “We both have, as a matter of fact.”

“When?” Rey asked, staring fascinatedly out the viewport. She would absolutely have remembered these dazzling, snowy cliffs and gossamer lakes of ice. The huge trees stood like pillars, frozen all over and glittering in the light.

“34 ABY,” said Kylo. “Not my fondest memory. You slashed my face open, as I recall.”

Rey put the pieces together. “This place becomes Starkiller Base?”

He nodded. “It had collapsed well before then. Overmining, which aggravated existing pockets of volcanic activity. We spent trillions of credits keeping the existing equatorial trench from expanding and destabilizing the whole planet.”

“That means that Poe exploded one of the most sacred places of the Jedi,” said Rey incredulously. “I’m not sure whether I should be proud or horrified.”

“He hasn’t exploded it yet,” said Kylo, landing the ship. “Maybe we can keep it that way in this timeline.”

“I hope so,” said Obi-Wan dryly, materializing with a smirk. “That’s rather the point of letting you two run amok in the past.”

“Is Anakin alright?” Rey asked. 

“Yes,” said Obi-Wan. “He’s resting, and he’ll return to disagree with your decision-making soon. In the meantime, do you know what you need to do here?”

“I’ve been before,” said Kylo tersely. “We’ll manage.”

“Okay,” said Obi-Wan. “Rey, you should find the process fairly intuitive. Open your mind, and you’ll be able to hear them when you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” she said politely, even though his advice didn’t make sense.

“She’ll be fine,” Kylo added. “This planet is kind to Jedi.”

“You might consider trusting in yourself, my young namesake,” said Obi-Wan, smiling indulgently. “I’ve seen many highly implausible victories, most of them arising from far more hopeless situations than yours. Now, what does Siri want to know about the future?”

Rey checked the datapad. “Her fate, your fate, and the fates of Quinlan Vos, Bant Eerin, and Ferus Olin.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “I’ll meditate on it. Quin outlived me, as did Ferus, I think, so I’ll need to try to contact Luke or Master Yoda to find out where they ended up later on. I was fairly occupied keeping track of Luke and Anakin for the first few years after my death. Go look for your crystals, and I’ll have something ready before Quin gets here.”

“Siri’s associate is the Vos from my grandfather’s list?” said Kylo, narrowing his eyes.

Obi-Wan shrugged. “Jedi only have so many friends. She said he was male, and she’s keeping my past self and Ferus out of it. That just leaves Quin. Try to wrap up well when he comes, by the way.”

“Why?” said Rey, looking between them.

“He’s Kiffar,” Obi-Wan explained. “Their whole species is naturally psychometric, but Force sensitivity augments the ability. If he touches either of you, even briefly, you need to explain your entire situation immediately.”

“That’s too dangerous,” said Kylo.

Obi-Wan inclined his head. “Be my guest. If I were faced with one of the Jedi Order’s most legendary Spymasters, I would prefer that any conclusions such a dangerous individual drew about me were based on complete data, rather than a series of detailed momentary impressions with little context. But of course, you’re welcome to handle this as you see fit, in the long-standing tradition of the Skywalker family.”

“Will he think it’s an insult to him if we wrap up?” said Rey.

Obi-Wan gestured out the viewport. “You’re on an ice planet. You’d be foolish not to.”

They managed to find some thicker coats, gloves, and leggings in Siri’s pack, and Rey used a scarf to wrap her face so that only her eyes and nose were uncovered. 

“This is when my mask would have been useful,” said Kylo, distastefully eyeing a black bandana. “I’ll look like an incredibly incompetent smuggler.”

“Your mask made you look like an incredibly incompetent bounty hunter,” said Obi-Wan airily from the pilot’s seat. “I never understood the point of those things.”

Kylo wrinkles his nose. “I’ve been told,” he said slowly, “that I have a rather expressive face. I didn’t want to be easy to read when I joined the First Order.”

“Give that here,” said Rey, tying the bandana as best she could. “And you should wear that hood up, so your ears don’t freeze.”

“You sound like Chewbacca,” Kylo grumbled, but he pulled it up anyway. 

Their boots made crisp outlines in the snow as they disembarked. “Now what?” said Rey, breathing in the frigid air.

“Now we meditate,” said Kylo. “Or at least, that’s what happened when I found my last crystal.” He sent flashes of memory over the bond—a group of ten or so enthusiastic students crammed together in a heated tent, opening their minds under the watchful eye of a Zabrak in Knight robes. 

“I’d kill for a tent like that right now,” said Rey, drawing her coat tighter. “My legs are going to freeze into the ice if we try to sit down.”

“Hoth is colder,” Kylo pointed out, clearing a space to sit with his boot. “If we don’t finish up here today, we can sleep on the shuttle.”

“Okay,” said Rey. “How long did it take you last time?”

Kylo didn’t reply at first. After a moment, he said, “It depends on a lot of different factors. Strength in the Force, of course, but also how far away the best crystal for a student is, how many people are trying at once, that sort of thing.”

“That makes sense,” said Rey. “How long was it for you, though?”

“Three days,” Kylo said reluctantly. “Longer than average.” 

“I see,” said Rey.

“Still respectable,” he added, with practiced indifference. Rey hid her smile behind her scarf.

They took a few minutes to get settled, cross-legged on the ice. Rey let her shields drop—first the shield over her bond with Kylo, then her shield from accidental mind contact, then, finally, her most basic shield, that filtered out ambient Force signals to protect her from psychic overload. 

Ilum’s presence in the Force manifested as a loud humming feeling, almost like a sound but not quite, that washed over her in slow, soothing waves. Rey slowed down her breathing to time it with the wave patterns and dismissed her thoughts and concerns from her consciousness, one by one, focusing only on the way the humming washed across the blank slate of her mind. She felt as if she herself was being woven into the planet’s frequency, as it vibrated across her body and her presence in the Force.

There was a jagged dissonance in the harmony, she realized slowly, and he was sitting across from her, still scowling and fidgeting periodically. She nudged him in the Force. _Relax. You’re throwing off the frequency._

He sent back a wave of displeasure. _I’m trying to relax. I’m just not succeeding at it._

Rey reached out in the Force and tapped pointedly at his shields. _Taking these down would be a start._

She felt his wince before she saw it. _I’ll take them down when I’m more settled._

_Do you want me to help?_ she asked.

_I’m fine,_ he sent back dismissively. _Don’t let me distract you._

Rey sent him a sense of the way he felt in the planet’s aura. _You’d be less distracting if you actually opened your mind._

Kylo sent back the sense of a grimace. _Believe it or not, you’re hardly the first person to suggest that I’d be more successful if I could just kriffing relax for thirty seconds._

Closing her eyes, Rey channeled the calm of the planet’s Force presence and funneled it through their open bond. _It’s not judging us, or whatever it is you think it’s doing. It’s just here._

_It’s not judging you,_ he sent back dryly. _There’s a difference._

Rey shared her skepticism across the bond. Then she stilled. _Ben, do you hear that?_

If he replied, she couldn’t feel him. The hum of the planet had shifted somehow, without her noticing it. It was swelling now, roaring through her senses, setting her consciousness adrift in an expanding current of the Force. Rey opened her eyes, in order to re-anchor herself in the physical world.

Every inch of snow and ice shone, as if lighted from within, and the shadows of the trees rippled and whirled in the changing light. Something tugged in her chest, insistently, as if the planet itself was trying to get her to pay attention to something. Above her, the sun moved in the sky faster than she’d ever seen a sun move on a world this size.

All this happened in what seemed like the span of an instant to Rey. Then, below the roar of the planet, she heard a voice, singing something low and yearning. Somehow, she knew it was a voice, but she couldn’t explain how, precisely, she was hearing it, or even what it sounded like. All she knew was that it corresponded to the light on the snow and the tug in her chest, and that it was somewhere _forward_. 

Rey rose to stand, feeling steadier than she should have after sitting on snow for so long. Her footprints in the snow were so light as to be barely discernible. The melody was louder, now, pulsing in time with her heartbeat, and soon she was squatting in the snow again, this time beside a cliff face. She could hear it coming from inside the cliff, which was glowing as if it was made of sea-glass from Ach-To’s beaches, shot through with light. 

Rey reached out in the Force and brushed the presence of the melody. It expanded in waves of jubilant counterpoint, chasing its own notes and lines around and around in an endless, timeless dance of recognition and joy. It was calling to her, she realized. It had been waiting, here, for her, all this time. When she reached out in the Force to it, the ice below her feet melted, and she knew without looking that there would be room for her to slide, feet-first, through a buried hole in the cliff-face, the way she had clambered into downed Destroyers through maintenance hatches and airlocks, a lifetime ago on Jakku.

She landed in a crouch on warm sand, in a cavern the size of a shuttle cockpit. The walls were covered with protruding masses of glowing, humming crystals, of all shapes, sizes, and colors. The powdery sand glittered in the light of the crystals, and it dusted her hands in iridescent rainbows when she lifted them from the ground. The song was close, now, just barely out of reach, pulsing eagerly through her mind and tugging her further into the cave complex.

Around the bend, the cavern widened into a massive cave, grown entirely over with crystals. In the center was a huge, bubbling lake, steaming faintly, and without hesitation, Rey slipped out of her boots and scarf at the edge of the sand and lowered herself over the stony lip of the hot spring.

The song was coming from underwater, but she couldn’t see the bottom of the pool to figure out where she should dive. She reached out again in the Force and took a deep breath, releasing her hold on the rock wall and floating out into the center. Then, before she could think better of it, she ducked underwater and swam down.

Below the surface, the melody was overwhelming. It moved with the bubbling of the water around her, drawing her deeper, even as her lungs burned with the effort. The tugging feeling in her chest was stronger, now, so strong that it felt like a physical hand, pulling her bodily into the depths of the spring.

Then suddenly, Rey’s hand brushed a crystal, and she _knew._ It came away easily in her hand, warm to the touch and thrumming in her grasp like a tiny, perfect motor. The water around her flared so brightly she could see it behind her closed eyes, the melody and harmony rang out together in a triumphant chord, and Rey came suddenly back to full awareness and control of her body. Of course, at the moment, her body was twenty feet deep in a hot spring, exhausted and starving, with barely any air left in her lungs.

She made it to the surface, coughing and spluttering, and settled down to inspect her prize. It fit comfortably in the palm of her hand and glowed yellow in time with her heartbeat. It would probably turn green or blue once she fit it into a saber casing, though. Something about the weight of it felt _right_ in her hand, and in comparison, Anakin’s saber had fit her terribly, although she’d never realized it until now.

_I’m done,_ she sent up to Kylo. _Please bring me some kriffing dry clothes from the shuttle. Also, if a bath might help you relax, there’s a hot spring here._

He didn’t respond, and after a minute, Rey reached out to him, tentatively. Kylo was still on the surface, and he’d taken down his shields. He had many more layers to his shields than her, and they interlocked and crossed like old scars. The last few layers must have been deeply melded to his mind, because they hung in tatters around him, and his presence felt painfully raw around the edges. She caught a flash from him— _kriff, no, please not like this—_ and then he winked out of the Force, all at once.

Rey stuffed her crystal in the pocket of her waterlogged vest and crammed her boots on her feet. She made it to the entry cavern in seconds, calling on the Force to jump back through the cave mouth and roll to a landing in the snow. Her wet clothes froze near-instantly in the frigid air. “Kylo!” she yelled, clambering to her feet. “Kylo, can you hear me?”

Kylo didn’t answer, but he emerged a moment later through a gap in the ice-trees, silhouetted against the snow. His eyes were glazed and unseeing, and when she felt for him in the Force again, all she could sense was a resigned, almost preternatural calm. As she watched, he raised his hand towards the cliff, and the gap in the cave mouth widened, just enough to fit his shoulders. He slid inside the opening and was gone.

Rey trudged back to the shuttle to wait for him. The sun was beginning to set, so either Ilum had a short day cycle, or she’d lost track of time in her meditation—probably the latter, if the way the sun had moved across the sky during her trance was any indication. 

She set her wet clothes out to dry atop the heating unit in the common area and started reconstituting some ration packs to eat, munching absentmindedly on a pack of nuts and dried fruit as she worked. 

“Hello, Rey,” said Obi-Wan behind her. “Did you find anything, or are you taking a break for the night?”

Rey dug her crystal out of the pouch on her belt, where she’d stowed it for safekeeping when she changed, and held it up. “I’ll start building tomorrow with some of the spare parts from Kylo’s saber.”

Obi-Wan smiled. “I can’t say I’d imagined you for yellow,” he observed mildly. “The way Luke talks about you, I was expecting blue or violet.”

“Yellow is okay, though?” said Rey. 

Obi-Wan stroked his translucent chin. “Yes, Rey, yellow is quite alright. Now sit down and eat before your soup gets cold.” As she swallowed her reconstituted vegetable soup, he told her of the history of the Temple Guards, who were permitted to develop strong attachments to their home and its occupants, the better to understand it and defend it. “The way I learned it,” he explained, “which may not be precisely true, is that yellow stands for the Force in its most natural form, neither Light nor Dark. I didn’t know many people besides the Temple Guards with yellow sabers during my life, though.”

“But I’m still a Jedi?” Rey asked.

“From a certain point of view,” said Obi-Wan. “The Jedi Order ended with me when I died, but that doesn’t make Luke any less of a Jedi. Why would that be, do you think?”

Rey thought about it a moment. “Because he calls himself one, and he tries to live by the way he interprets the Code,” she suggested. “Even though he knows it’s a flawed way of being, he hasn’t let go of that ideal.”

“So,” said Obi-Wan. “With that in mind, Rey, are you a Jedi?”

“I’m not sure,” said Rey softly. “I could try to be.”

“There’s your answer,” said Obi-Wan. “You could be, but you certainly don’t have to be.”

Something shifted in the Force just then. It felt like gratitude, and exhausted, desperate relief.

_Ben?_

The feeling intensified, positively flooding the Force. _Rey, I’m alright. I’ll meet you in the shuttle._

_Do you need dry clothes?_ she asked. 

_Oh. Yes, I suppose I do. Thank you, Rey. Have I ever said that before?_

_Not sure,_ she thought. _But I appreciate it._

The shuttle doors burst open, and Kylo skidded in, dripping water across the floor. “What happened?” said Rey.

His face split open in a broad grin. “Purple, Rey,” he said, almost giddily. “It’s purple.”

Something clicked in Rey’s brain, then, looking at him smiling. It felt like the moment when a motor that had been broken purred to life, a sort of wordless _oh. This is the piece I was missing before._

“Purple?” she said out loud, filing the feeling away for future study.

“Not red, not blue,” he confirmed. His presence in the Force felt _starry_ , like a sky that had been clouded too long.

“What does that mean?”

“Pick one,” he retorted, still grinning madly, icy water dripping from his hair in rivulets. “Snoke was wrong, Luke was wrong, I was wrong, because it isn’t light or dark for me, Rey, it’s _both_. I don’t need to give up feeling things again, and I get to keep my free will.” 

“I’m so unbelievably happy for you,” said Rey, “really, I am, but you need to go change your clothes before you freeze. There’s soup when you’re done.”

“Right,” he said. “Is there any power left in that closet thing that thinks it’s a ‘fresher?”

“All yours,” she replied.

A few minutes later, he poked at her presence in the bond. _Somehow I forgot to ask—what’s yours like?_

She sent him her memory of it cupped in her palm. _Had to dive into a hot spring for it._

He sent back a flare of interest. _I had to dive, too, if it makes you feel better. This time, not last time. Last time, I meditated for three days, and the crystal ended up being in a little alcove barely six feet underground. At that point, I was just relieved that I found one. I’d spent weeks having nightmares that mine would turn red the instance I touched it, and I’d get kicked out of school and sent to prison._

_How old were you?_ she asked.

He gave the mental equivalent of a shrug. _Thirteen or fourteen, I think. I was a paranoid teenager, though I guess voices in your head will do that to you. Your crystal’s yellow?_ he added, in a fairly transparent ploy to change the topic.

_Yellow,_ she confirmed.

_Like your name,_ he sent back. It took her a moment to get the pun.

_Poe tried nicknaming me Sunshine a couple times, actually._

_I can see why. You’re a regular beam of light when you’re not physically, verbally, or mentally attacking me._

She snorted and focused on loosening an exhaust port off his old saber. _Do I need to attack you to get you to actually take a shower?_

_No,_ he sent back, and a moment later, she heard the sonic turn on. A moment later, he sent, _I’ll calm down enough to deal with Vos when he gets here, I promise. I’m just so relieved that it’s hard to think straight._

_You’re fine,_ she sent. _Now take your kriffing sonic shower, and let me focus on undoing your terrible teenage engineering job._

Rey forgot all about the _oh_ feeling she’d had until later that night, when she was lying on her tiny shelf of a ship’s bunk, listening to Kylo snoring faintly above her. Something about the sound made her want to smile, which was ridiculous.

Then she remembered the feeling, and the _oh_ coalesced into an _oh, kriff._ She had _feelings_ , now. Quite possibly romantic feelings, for Kylo Ren, who she’d observed committing murder on multiple occasions.

Of course, there was absolutely no way she was emotionally ready for any relationship, let alone a relationship with him. Relationships, Poe had explained during the early days of his mutual pining with Finn, were like speederbikes. If you wanted to start flying one, your first bike should have good safety ratings and kriffing training wheels, or you’d crash before you learned enough to handle your next bike. Compared to Poe and Finn’s relationship, which was the only real example Rey had to compare by, a relationship with Kylo under their present circumstances was roughly equivalent to a racing bike, on its highest setting, on the edge of a cliff, on fire.

In short, as much as she loved his smile and his hair and his stupid kriffing ears, the feelings were a very bad idea. They were there, and no amount of firm denial was going to change that, but they were feelings—just that. They didn’t have to translate into action, and they wouldn’t. If she kriffed the past up, they would both likely end up dead, and she could sort out the feelings when they were safely back in their own time. That was if there was anything left to sort out by then. Maybe it would all go away on its own.

The important thing was that he really couldn’t be allowed to figure out how she felt. He was awkward on a good day. If he ever, _ever_ figured out that she liked him, he would barely be able to look at her, let alone work with her. 

Then she remembered, with a jolt, that he was literally connected to her mind.

_Oh, blast,_ Rey thought. _I’m so kriffed._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ll probably update the chapter count for this at some point because I am...not halfway through. Posts might slow down a little though, as it looks like I’ll be at home for the foreseeable future.
> 
> Next time: Anakin and Padmé get a phone call from everyone’s (least) favorite Evil Grandpa, Kylo and Rey meet Quinlan Vos, and Obi-Wan continues to be both highly competent and highly stressed.
> 
> Thanks as always for reading!! We’ll get through this together, all of us <3 <3 <3
> 
> To go all yoga on you guys, the light in me recognizes and honors the HELL out of the lights in each and every one of you ;)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m BACK!!!  
> (remember back when I was capable of writing normal-sized chapters? Haha those days are over...*semi-guiltily holds out 10K of tablesetting*)

Kylo awoke from a deeper-than-usual sleep to find Rey already awake in the ship’s common area, surrounded by loose wires and bits of scrap metal.

“Good morning,” he said, surreptitiously checking the ship’s chrono to be sure it was actually morning and not afternoon. “You’re up early.”

Rey grunted and called a minuscule wrench to her with the Force. She was holding two screws in her mouth. 

“Difficulty sleeping?” he asked, rummaging in the ship’s cupboards to see if the previous owners had left anything edible. 

In the corner of his eye, it looked as if Rey‘s head jerked a little. “No,” she said around the screw. “Just thinking,” she added, a moment later.

“Right,” he said. “Anything I should know?”

“No,” Rey said distractedly. “Caf’s in the pot. Should still be hot if I wired the coils right.”

He found the pot and poured himself a cup. “I don’t suppose they have anything to put in it?”

Rey shrugged her shoulders, without looking up from her tinkering. “Not sure. I drink it black and scalding.” She clearly wasn’t exaggerating about drinking it scalding, at least, he decided, studying her absent-mindedly while he poked through the ship’s cooler—her face was bright red. 

He found some powdered bantha milk and a jar of something sweet and sticky and dosed his caf liberally with both. “All those parts came out of my saber?”

“I actually found a toolbox on a walk this morning,” Rey explained. “Somebody must have left it there.”

“That’s good,” he said, downing half the mug in a gulp. 

“Speaking of scraps, what do you want me to do with your old crystal when I finish taking out your emitters?” said Rey, looking up at him. Her tone was nonchalant, but he _knew_ in the Force that she could tell how momentous this was for him. He was finally letting go of something that had defined the way he thought about himself since he was a teenager. “Do you want it?”

“Don’t worry about it for now,” he said awkwardly. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Okay,” said Rey, and bent back over her pile of metal.

“When you get to a stopping place where nothing’s in imminent danger of blowing up, we need to talk next steps,” he offered, a moment later. “Vos today, but also where we go next.”

An amused cough sounded from the common area table. “Did I legitimately just hear a Skywalker suggest making a plan before rushing recklessly into a dangerous situation? The end days of the galaxy must be upon us.”

“Hello, Obi-Wan,” said Kylo, without turning around. “Did you get the information we need?”

“I think so,” said Obi-Wan. “I couldn’t manage to reach Luke, but Yoda kept himself fairly well-informed. Someone will need to type it up, though. One of the sad limitations of being incorporeal.”

“Kylo will do it,” said Rey, instantly. “I want to weld the casing.”

“Have you studied existing saber designs before?” Obi-Wan began. “They’re incredibly fascinating, really.”

Rey was squinting at her pile of metal parts, which seemed to be mostly hollow cylinders of various sizes, with wires sticking out of them. “I’ve taken apart mine and put it back together, and I took Kylo’s mostly apart last night,” she said distractedly, fiddling with the handle of a pipe-like tool. Sparks began flying out of the end, scorching the table. “And I have some ideas for how to improve the design,” she added, raising her voice over the sputtering of the welder. 

“Let’s go type that up,” Kylo interrupted, leading the way to the cockpit. _Can you disable the ship’s smoke alarm next time you try that?_ he sent Rey. _I’m not interested in a lecture on how to weld safely._

_Sorry_ , Rey replied. _The control wasn’t pressure-sensitive like the ones from our time._

There was something a little different about her mental contact this morning. It was more measured, somehow, as if Rey was choosing her words before she sent a thought across the bond, rather than telegraphing full thoughts without caring about the specific way they were expressed. It was probably a useful skill to have, Kylo decided, and resolved to learn it as well. Fine mental control had never been his strong suit, but as the Wookiee proverb went, it was never too late to learn a new way to save your hide.

He spent the next half hour typing Obi-Wan’s findings into a datapad, then another half hour copying the document onto a drive and sealing the drive in a carrying case. It was slow work, since he had to wear gloves whenever he touched the drive in order to avoid leaving psychic residue, and every item on the list seemed more disheartening than the last. Siri would be dead in a matter of weeks if the timeline didn’t change, and that was merely the beginning.

“Done!” yelled Rey from the common area, as Kylo debated whether or not to edit the drive to include details about Ferus Olin’s future husband. On the one hand, Siri might appreciate knowing that someone on her list experienced a period of happiness, however brief. On the other hand, the list needed to discourage Siri from trying to fix the timeline herself by killing Anakin before he could become Vader. Mentioning yet another person murdered by Anakin would probably be counterproductive.

“With the lightsaber?” he asked incredulously. 

“With the two-port adapter for the hilt,” Rey said, emerging into the cockpit. “Crispic? It’s a bit stale.”

He took the offered bag and decided against including information on Roan Olin-Lands. “You’re making a saberstaff?”

“Yeah,” said Rey, sprawling down onto the copilot seat. “I was going to just cannibalize one of your vent ports as the base of the hilt, then I realized that using only one is a waste of a perfectly good vent port.”

It made sense, and something about the image of Rey wielding a yellow saberstaff felt— _right_ , in the Force.

“Good idea,” he said. 

“How’s Siri’s list?” Rey asked.

“Depressing,” he said, and left it at that. “So, we saved Shmi. The next items are, what, Dooku and Clone Army?”

“Can I see this list?” said Obi-Wan. “Anakin never showed it to me or Luke.”

“Shmi Lars, Clone Army, Dooku, Ferus Olin, Padawan Pack, Battle of Umbara, something happened to Obi-Wan on Mandalore, Snips left, Fives and Tup, Ventress and Vos, Order 66, Padmé,” Rey rattled off. “Any insight?”

Obi-Wan looked concerned. “I think Anakin might not be very self-aware,” he said. “Half of these are just general bad things that happened, not things that specifically contributed to his Fall. It’s hard for me to imagine that the coup d’état on Mandalore sent him any further towards the Dark Side, seeing as he wasn’t even there.”

Kylo shrugged. “We fix all of them, and he sends us back. That’s the deal.”

“You’re not going to fix Dooku,” said Obi-Wan. “Jedi Order politics are much more complicated than Anakin wants to believe.”

“Then we fix the Clone Army, and worry about Dooku later,” said Rey. 

“Alright,” Obi-Wan agreed. “In the old timeline, I was on Kamino by now, but I’m not sure I’ll get there if Siri and I keep chasing Anakin.”

“What would it take to free the clones?” Rey asked.

“Good question,” said Obi-Wan thoughtfully. “I’m not sure. If the Republic doesn’t buy them, I’m fairly confident that the Separatists will. And if I get captured on Geonosis in the new timeline and there isn’t an army waiting, the Jedi Order could be wiped out.”

“So we need the clones to still work for the Republic,” said Kylo.

“Yes,” said Obi-Wan. “But that means letting Sidious have emergency powers, which I’d like to avoid if possible. And once we buy the clones, the only avenue for ensuring their rights are upheld will be the Senate.”

“I see,” said Kylo, remembering the interminable Senate sessions he’d had to attend with his mother whenever his father was offworld and his other babysitters were busy. “That’s not a good option. What are our alternatives?”

“Leak the news about the chips early,” suggested Obi-Wan. “Create a public hue and cry, and hope that it shames the Senate into freeing the clones.”

“Then Palpatine comes up with a backup plan that we don’t know about,” said Rey.

“Right,” said Obi-Wan, and sighed heavily. “If we sabotage Kamino now, they could all die. In that case, there isn’t a Clone War, because there aren’t any clones. I suppose at that point the Republic would institute a draft.”

“Also something to avoid,” said Rey. “Is there any way for the clones to fight the war without being owned by the Republic?”

Kylo saw the solution in a flash. “That’s it. Rey, you’re a genius!” Something he couldn’t name rippled through the Force surrounding her, the way it had when he’d come back on the ship holding his crystal. He ignored it and kept talking. “In the drafts for the Clone Citizenship Act, there was talk of assigning them as Mandalorian citizens, right?”

“Yes,” said Obi-Wan, squinting a little. “Mandalore was occupied at the time, so it was easy to grant them citizenship on a planet we didn’t yet have. Besides, Mandalorian citizenship is largely adoption-based, which meant fewer laws to amend, and their genetic template, Jango Fett, was Mando by birth anyway. I fail to see where this line of thought is leading, however.”

“It’s leading to Jango Fett,” said Kylo. “During the Second Clan War, he headed the True Mandalorian faction. And what does everyone know about the True Mandalorians?” he asked Rey.

She looked bewildered. “I don’t know. How do you know all of this?”

“Didn’t you have a Mandalorian phase growing up?” he asked.

“I grew up on Jakku,” she reminded him. “I literally don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“A Mandalorian phase is a cliche thing for my generation,” he explained. “Like having a smuggler phase, or a pilot phase. We all wanted to have armor, and sworn brothers, and a jetpack, and get to fight in all the best battles in the galaxy, and so on.”

“Your father must have loved that,” Obi-Wan muttered.

“Anyway,” Kylo continued as if he hadn’t heard him, “there were three major factions in the Second Clan War. The Death Watch—that’s the old traditionalists with a vendetta against the Jedi. I didn’t care about the New Mandalorians much, because what’s the point of being in a society of deadly warriors if you’re going to be a pacifist? So when I pretended to be a Mandalorian, I always wanted to be one of the True Mandalorians.”

“What’s the difference?” said Rey.

“The True Mandalorians believed in upholding Mandalore’s warrior culture, but they followed a strict code of honor,” Obi-Wan explained. “Essentially, they wanted to create a society of highly paid mercenaries. But the Death Watch massacred them all decades ago in both timelines.”

“Not quite,” said Kylo. “Jango Fett’s still alive, and claiming the title of Mand’alor from offworld.”

Rey caught on quickly. “You think he could organize the clones as mercenaries and sell their services to the Republic.”

“It could work,” said Obi-Wan thoughtfully. “But he’s an ally of Dooku’s. Why would he work with the Republic?”

“Because even with a code of honor, he’s a mercenary,” said Rey plainly. “That means he has a price, and that means we can convince him.”

“You two don’t have any authority to negotiate for the Republic,” Obi-Wan pointed out.

“So we comm Siri and tell her to get this timeline’s Obi-Wan there,” Rey explained. “What about the chips?”

“I haven’t gotten that far,” Kylo admitted. “Did Fett know about the chips in your timeline?”

“I didn’t get the chance to ask,” Obi-Wan said, somewhat irritated. “Initially, because I was busy fighting him, and then later because I was busy trying not to die, and once the battle cleared up, the only thing left of him for me to interrogate was a corpse.”

“Who knows about the chips right now?” said Rey.

“Palpatine and the Kaminoans for sure,” said Obi-Wan. “Possibly Dooku, possibly Fett. I don’t know of any others.”

“That’s what we do, then,” said Rey. “If Siri succeeds in flipping Jango, we’ll break in after the clones are out, and copy the blueprints for the chips.”

“Palpatine will create another way to kill the Jedi if we leak the chip blueprints,” he reminded her. 

“We won’t leak the blueprints,” said Rey. “We’ll keep them for now. Then, when the army is fairly established, we’ll get the blueprints to a small number of trustworthy, influential people, and suggest that the chips are quietly removed.”

“Okay,” said Obi-Wan. “That could work, provided the Kaminoans don’t notice the break-in and alert Palpatine.”

“We’ll just have to be subtle,” Kylo broke in. “This is by far our best option.”

“Force save me from the subtlety of the Skywalker family,” Obi-Wan muttered. 

“There’s a ship landing over there,” Rey said, probably to keep them from further arguing the point. “It looks like it lost a dogfight or two.”

“That would be Quin’s shuttle,” said Obi-Wan. “Quinlan is many things, but a careful pilot is definitely not one of them. Kylo, do you have the drive?”

He held it up wordlessly and started wrapping his face. 

“Change your gloves,” Rey suggested, holding out hers. “You’ve touched them a lot, so he might be able to get something about you off them.”

He stared at the offered gloves. “Rey, we don’t wear the same glove size.”

“They’re stretchy,” she said stubbornly. 

They fit, but only barely, and Kylo had to force himself not to fidget with them as he descended the gangplank. He could feel Vos’ gaze on him, even from a distance.

Vos kept his hood up as they approached each other. He was as tall as Kylo, with dark skin and a tattooed face. 

“We have a mutual friend, I think,” said Kylo, once they were within speaking distance.

“I believe so,” said Vos impassively. “You have something for her?”

He handed the case over. Vos took it in his gloved hands. “The file will show if it’s been read before it was uploaded, and it auto-deletes after.”

“Fine by me,” said Vos. “Is this all?”

“No,” said Kylo. He took a deep breath and hoped he was doing the right thing. “Ask our friend to think about who might have benefited from an incident twelve years ago. It’ll give her the answer she wants.”

Vos squinted at him for a long moment. Then he sighed. “Okay, look, whoever you are. Smoke and mirrors don’t divert attention, they draw it.”

“I don’t follow,” said Kylo.

Vos snorted impatiently. “Of course you don’t. I’m giving you free advice. Take it or leave it. When you say things that are obviously mysterious, like the banthashit you just tried to feed me, anyone with half a brain knows that something’s up. You’re lucky nobody’s hearing this but me.”

“What should I have done instead?”

“Dispense with the ‘mutual friend’ charade,” said Vos. “I’m a friend of Siri’s, you’re a friend of Siri’s. You have something for her, I’m seeing her before you, and I can pass it on. Simple as that. Don’t insult my intelligence by warning me that she’ll know if I’ve tampered. As for whatever that riddle was supposed to be, give it to her over comms, or think of a more natural way to phrase it.”

“Tell her anyway,” Kylo insisted. Vos hadn’t meant to be insulting—probably. “She’ll understand.”

“Sure,” said Vos easily. “Your op, not mine. Just so you know, if your incompetent spycraft gets our friend killed, I’ll come after you. And as I already told Siri, if I somehow get killed because of this, I have a spitfire of an ex-Padawan who won’t hesitate to make you hurt for it.”

“Aayla Secura?” Kylo asked unthinkingly.

“What’s it to you?” said Vos, instantly tense. There was a challenging, dangerous glint to his eyes. 

“Sorry,” said Kylo. If Vos had mentioned Rey by name, he probably would have bristled as well. He backed away a step. “I didn’t mean that as a threat. I was just asking.”

“Sure,” said Vos, without relaxing even slightly. “Is that all?”

“I really am sorry,” said Kylo. “Thank you for the advice.”

“Try not to get stabbed,” said Vos, still guarded. He turned to walk back to his ship. 

Kylo couldn’t help the slow, sinking feeling that he had just failed a test.

“Actually,” he said slowly, “I can offer you advice in return.”

Vos turned around. “What sort of advice?”

One of Kylo’s roommates, his first year at Luke’s temple before he’d been allowed to move to a single room, had been a Rutian Twi’lek from a polytheistic family. Kylo didn’t remember his name, but he remembered pretending to read a book as the other boy unpacked his altar, explaining the names and roles of each deity to their other roommates as he set the tokens out. He’d brought tokens for several of the most important deities, but to the side of those tokens, he set out other, smaller tokens, one for the favorite deity of each member of his family. He’d set out the token for Aayla Secura last—his little sister prayed to her, he said, and she’d been so excited to know that he was going to become a Jedi like Secura Chainbreaker. Kylo had laughed, then, because he’d seen the New Temple’s monument to the casualties of Order 66. He’d sneered that if the other boy followed Secura’s example too closely, he’d be dead to friendly fire on a jungle hellworld before he knew it.

Needless to say, his relationship with his roommates had been somewhat strained after that. 

“When Aayla goes to Felucia,” he said slowly, looking Vos in the eyes, “tell her to leave her men behind.”

Vos nodded once. “Okay. Thanks for the warning. Much better phrasing, by the way.”

“No problem,” said Kylo, and trudged back to the ship.

* * *

  
  


“What the kriffing hell have you landed yourself in this time, Tachi?”

“Hi, Quin, how are you doing? How was your flight? I’m doing great, thanks for asking,” said Siri wearily, watching the percent upload indicator from the datastick transmission. 

“Ha,” said Quin dryly. “Look, you said no questions asked, and I won’t pry.”

“Thanks for that,” said Siri. “Did it go smoothly?”

“As smoothly as could be expected,” said Quin, “considering that your contact is as overdramatic as a Nemoidian with a toothache.”

Siri couldn’t hold back her snort. “He is, isn’t he?”

“That reminds me,” said Quin. “He had a verbal message for you as well. Top secret, for your ears only, et cetera.” He pitched his voice in a deep, bass rumble. “Tell our mutual friend to think about who might have benefited from an incident twelve years ago. It’ll give her the answer she wants.” He switched back to speaking normally. “So there’s that. Any sudden bursts of enlightenment?”

“Would I tell you if I’d had one?” Siri shot back.

“Fair,” said Quin. “Watch your back, alright?”

“I don’t need the reminder,” said Siri. “Save that for Kenobi.”

Quin grinned. “I hear the Council’s in a tizzy. Something about Skywalker kidnapping a Senator?”

“Where did you hear that?” Siri asked.

“They might not have found the last bug I stuck in the Council chamber,” said Quin with exaggerated innocence. “I have to say, Skywalker’s a nice asset to the Order. He makes all the usual varieties of Padawan mischief look like innocent child’s play.”

“Well,” said Siri mischievously, “you’d know all about that, of course.”

“Aayla,” said Quin severely, “is Knighted ahead of schedule, and anyone who says she ever gave me or the Council trouble is a liar.”

“I wasn’t talking about Aayla,” said Siri. “I distinctly heard Windu calling Skywalker ‘this generation’s version of Vos’ to Yoda.”

“What did Yoda say?” 

“Live up to the original edition, we must hope he does not,” Siri quoted, doing the voice that even Initiates knew how to mimic.

Vos’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”

“Ask them,” said Siri, forcing her expression to stay indifferent.

Quin scanned her face for a moment. Then he burst into sharp, barking laughter. “You almost had me there, Siri.”

“I’ll get you one day,” she said. “Thanks for doing this.”

“Tell Kenobi I’m dragging him outside next time we’re both planetside,” said Vos. 

“I won’t, seeing as he doesn’t know about this,” Siri reminded him. “Bye now.”

“Bye,” said Vos, and cut the transmission.

The datastick had loaded, so Siri pulled up the document.

_Siri Tachi: deceased 22 BBY (14 GrS) in combat with a bounty hunter on Azure._

That was sooner than she’d expected, but it made sense. If Rey and Kylo were telling the truth and Obi-Wan’s Force Ghost really was in on this, he wouldn’t have picked someone who figured into things later to help them. In the best case scenario, a bit of foreknowledge would help save her; if things went badly for her because of this, it wouldn’t alter the original timeline beyond recognition. 

_Bant Eerin: deceased 20 BBY (16 GrS) in bombing attack on Jedi Temple._

That wasn’t happening, if Siri had any say in the matter. Bant was the only person Siri knew who could beat Obi-Wan in a contest of self-sacrificing kindness. There was no way in kriffing hell that Siri was going to let her get blown to smithereens.

_Obi-Wan Kenobi: survived the Great Jedi Purge and escaped to Tatooine, deceased in combat with Anakin Skywalker aboard the Death Star in 0 ABY (36 GrS)._

Siri swore violently and started rummaging through the cabin dresser to find something to drink before she read the last two entries.

_Quinlan Vos: fell to the Dark Side during a 19 BBY (17 GrS) undercover mission, betrayed the Republic. Returned to the Light Side shortly before the Jedi Purge. Survived, escaped to the Outer Rim, deceased 29 ABY._

_Ferus Olin: left the Jedi Order 22 BBY after a mission to Moraband killed another Padawan. Enlisted in the Republic Army 21 BBY, discharged for injury 20 BBY. Survived the Jedi Purge, headed Bellassan cell of the Rebellion, served undercover in the Empire 18-15 BBY. Escaped to Alderaan, escaped destruction of Alderaan, deceased in combat with Anakin Skywalker 0 ABY._

Ferus tapped her mind questioningly with an image of her sudden distress in the Force. She quickly shoved the list and its associated reactions behind her shields, cleared her mind, and sent him a wave of reassurance. He withdrew, but he was still clearly worried about her. She was going to have to get better at shielding her emotional reactions from him if this kept going much longer.

Siri poured herself a few fingers of brandy and swallowed jerkily. Her hands felt unsteady. She needed a plan.

Obviously, she’d have to turn down missions to Moraband for herself and Ferus. She’d need to try to keep from dying on Azure, if she ended up there. She could deal with Quin and Bant and the Jedi Purge when the time came, if she was smart enough to still be on her feet by then. 

Her first order of business: figuring out who she could blame for this, so she could fantasize about putting her lightsaber through their gut, instead of putting a saber in Skywalker’s gut when Kenobi kriffing found him.

Siri leaned back in the chair and stared idly up at the shuttle’s ceiling. Twelve years ago would have been the Naboo crisis. Major players still living: Obi-Wan, then-Queen Amidala, and Nute Gunray. Obi-Wan had been Knighted, but he’d lost his Master, his mental health, his independence, and whatever self-confidence he’d had left at that point. Amidala had increased her political profile, at the cost of ten percent of her planet’s population and nearly a quarter of its national resources. Naboo would spend centuries in debt to pay for the necessary reconstruction efforts. Gunray had gained nothing from the invasion after he’d been driven out, but he had lost very little, since the Senate refused to so much as censure the Trade Federation for their actions.

She took another drink and thought about tangential players—Skywalker, Binks, Nass, Valorum, and Palpatine. Skywalker had undoubtedly benefited from the crisis, but he couldn’t be the second Sith Lord, because that would mean that he’d be apprenticed to himself once he Fell. Binks and Nass, like Amidala, had gained political power at the expense of their people and resources. The Gungans had been as hard hit as the mainland Naboo, and they’d had an even harder time getting loans for reconstruction, since the Banking Clans were speciesist assholes. Valorum had been one of the only clear-cut losers of the crisis. Palpatine was in the same situation as Amidala—increase in political power at a terrible human cost.

Then again, she realized slowly, if Valorum had suffered a concrete loss, Palpatine, by the same logic, would have experienced a clear victory. That was how politics worked—power wasn’t created or destroyed, only transferred from person to person. But why would Palpatine have wanted to engineer an invasion of his own home planet?

Because, she answered herself, it was sentient nature to avoid crossing someone in power who was suffering. If it had been any other planet, Palpatine would have just been a new target for the Senate’s general hatred of interplanetary authority figures. But because this wasn’t just any planetary crisis, but his own crisis, on his own planet, they had listened, whether out of sympathy or fear. It had to be Palpatine. There were no other options that added up. 

She forced herself to focus rationally on the practicalities of the situation, ignoring her slow, dawning horror at how easily they had been played.

If she were Palpatine, what would her next move be? He’d built a base group of supporters and attracted a handful of more casual allies. If he was really a Sith, then it would all be about power for him. In politics, the only way to get more power was by taking it from other people, though, and Senators didn’t give up power without a fight.

Then again, every Jedi knew that the best way to get someone to trust you was to convince them that someone else posed a bigger threat. That was what Palpatine was doing—fanning up fear of a Separatist incursion so the Republic would trust him to protect them. 

Siri poured more brandy for herself. Getting buzzed wasn’t going to stop the Sith from eradicating the Jedi and taking over the galaxy, but it was sure as hell going to make her feel better.

She hit “accept” on the unmarked comm call when it came through without her typical ten seconds of risk analysis, because they were all kriffed anyway, so caution was pointless. Even if the caller had it out for her or Kenobi and accepting it would make them easier to track—well, the caller could go get in line behind all the other people trying to kill them.

It was Rey. “Siri, are you free to talk?”

“Yep,” said Siri. “Tell your friend he’s terrible at being cryptic, by the way.”

“I’ll pass on the message,” said Rey dryly. “Listen, we need you to do something.”

“I’m busy,” said Siri. “You two just dumped the destruction of the Jedi and the deaths of everyone I care about on me. I deserve a few hours to feel sorry for myself.”

“I’m sorry,” said Rey. “You wanted to know.”

“I know that I asked to know, and I still would rather know than not know,” Siri explained. “But the fact remains—I’m not mission-ready right now.”

“You have some time,” said Rey. “All you need to do for now is to convince Obi-Wan to go to Kamino instead of looking for Anakin.”

“What’s on Kamino?” said Siri.

“An army,” said Rey. 

“No,” said Siri flatly. “No way. Absolutely not in a million years.”

“What?”

“Even Jedi pay attention to politics,” Siri said. “The Sith Lord wants the Republic to have an army, and I’m not about to play into his hands.”

“You won’t be,” said Rey. She was clearly trying to be soothing, which was incredibly irritating at the moment. “He wants the Republic to buy this army. You would be arranging for the Republic to rent it.”

“That,” Siri seethed, “is a tiny technicality. A rented army is still an army, and any army that answers to a Sith is a threat to the Jedi. If you disagree, fine. Get the army yourselves.”

“Hear me out,” said Rey. “It’s an army of clones.”

“Like the list,” Siri recalled. 

“Yes. Their genetic template died in the next few days of the old timeline.”

“Who’s the template?”

Rey paused. “Jango Fett, the head of the True Mandalorians. If you convince him to flip on the Separatists and organize the army under his own leadership, the Republic can pay for their services.”

Siri blinked. “Am I drunk, or did you say he was Mandalorian?”

“He’s Mandalorian,” Rey said.

“And you think he’ll listen to Jedi?” Siri scoffed. “Every Mando I’ve had the displeasure of running into believes pretty strongly that the only good Jedi is a dead Jedi.”

“If you want to avert the Jedi Purge,” said Rey firmly, “this is the best option we’ve found. If it doesn’t work, we’ll look for another option.”

“Fine,” said Siri with bitter emphasis. “Now please hang up so I can sober up and try to figure out how the kriffing hell I’m going to pull this off.”

“Give us an update as soon as you’re offworld,” said Rey. “There’s a second phase to the plan.”

“Okay,” said Siri, feeling a headache coming on, “you are almost as terrible at being cryptic as your Dark Side friend. Now, please tell me so I don’t have to find out from Kenobi later: are you two blowing up the cloning facilities, stealing their data, leaking their location, or some combination of those three?”

“Got to go!” Rey rattled off hurriedly, and cut the connection.

Siri pulled up the ship’s galactic navigational chart and searched for the name “Kamino”. No results, which tracked with what Kasse had found out. As far as known galactic data indicated, Kamino didn’t exist. 

Of course, Kamino did exist; ergo, someone had kriffed up on the known galactic data.

She drank a glass of water and commed Ferus, who was out looking for a fuel refill while Obi-Wan worked on locating Anakin. He was sober, and it would be good problem-solving practice for him. “Padawan, logic question. You’re looking for a planet. You know it exists, because you’ve talked to informants who’ve met people from there, and you’ve seen physical items that have been identified as originating from there. But it doesn’t exist in known galactic data. How do you find its coordinates? You have fifteen minutes.”

Ferus brushed against her shields again, worriedly. “Master, are you drunk?” he said out loud.

“Would the world end if I was?” she said humorlessly. “Focus on solving the problem and don’t let me distract you.”

“Master Tachi, something’s obviously wrong,” he insisted. “You were upset, earlier.”

Siri bit her lip. Hadn’t she just been lecturing Obi-Wan about how she trusted Ferus and treated him like an adult? “Yes,” she admitted, slowly. “I was upset.” 

“What’s going on?”

“Do you want another logic question?”

“Still working on the first one,” Ferus admitted, clearly startled by the sudden change of subject. He sent her a vague sense of his subconscious mental process disassembling the problem into various scenarios.

“It’s not really a logic problem,” she said. “Think of it as a series of hypotheticals.”

“Okay.”

Siri chose her words carefully. “Say that a Senator learns about an important bill that’s being written, and her closest ally within her party asks her to help draft it, provided that she keeps the contents top secret. In drafting the bill, she realizes that it will negatively affect several of her constituents—but she can stop that effect by warning them. Understand so far?”

“I think?” said Ferus. 

“However,” she continued, “if anyone realizes that the contents have been leaked, the opposition party will take that opening to draft a different version of the bill, one that she can’t anticipate or influence. There’s the logic problem. Hypothetically, should her primary loyalty be to her party, or to her constituents?”

“You’re saying you can’t tell me what you’re worried about, because by knowing about it, I would automatically influence the situation in a way you can’t control,” Ferus guessed. “Am I right?”

“Yes,” she said. “Ferus, if I was going to tell anyone, it would be you.”

“That means a lot, Master,” said Ferus, quiet and serious. Then he pitched his tone more casually. “Now please, stop drinking for tonight. If not for your own health, then so that I don’t have to talk to Master Kenobi without you there to defend me.”

“His apology was that bad?” 

“It was a good apology,” said Ferus guardedly. “He clearly feels guilty.”

“But?” said Siri. Ferus was a good kid, but he kept his cards close to his chest. He was a bit like Obi-Wan, that way.

“He’s your friend,” Ferus protested. “And a Knight. It’s not a big deal, Master.”

“I’m a Knight,” said Siri, “and I kriff up regularly. What’s the but?”

“Have you ever had a moment,” said Ferus slowly, “where you look at a person, and all you see is their weaknesses?”

“Yes,” said Siri. “I try not to.”

“So do I,” said Ferus. “But that’s what I felt like Master Kenobi was doing. Using my social failures to create a vulnerability in your argument against him. And I think he’d happily do it again, no matter how sorry he is for lashing out.”

Siri searched for the right words. “Kenobi thinks he’s backed into a corner, so he’s fighting dirty,” she said finally. “He would do it again, yes, but not under normal circumstances. And now that he’s had the fight he wants, he won’t do it again for a while.”

“That makes sense,” said Ferus. “Thank you, Master.”

“Ferus,” said Siri, trying to be casual about it, “have you ever thought about leaving the Order?”

“No,” said Ferus. He was clearly surprised by the question. “Did you think about it when you were a Padawan?”

“Yes,” said Siri, thinking of a younger Obi-Wan whose fountain-blue eyes bored deeply into hers in the cockpit of a shuttle, minutes away from certain death. “I was a lot younger than you, though. The grass is always greener on the other side, at that age. Life outside the Order can have a lot to offer.”

“If life is better outside the Order,” Ferus said, “I certainly haven’t seen it.”

“I’m not sure if it’s better. Just different,” Siri suggested. “You know. Getting to care a little bit more, things like that. You’ve only gotten to see other people’s bad days. Nobody requests Jedi assistance when they’re blissfully happy.”

“I don’t want to be blissfully happy,” Ferus said seriously. “I want to be worthy of becoming a Jedi.”

“Good,” said Siri. “You know it’s okay if that ever changes, right?”

“Why would it change?” said Ferus. “I made a commitment to the Jedi when I became your Padawan. It’s a trade—instruction, in exchange for service to the Order. If I left now, my debt would be unpaid. Do you think I would do that to the Order?”

“No,” said Siri, staring at the data upload from Quin. “Of course not. I just realized we haven’t talked about this very much. With all the Anakin stuff, and with you on track to be Knighted, I just wanted to make sure.”

“Sure of what?” said Ferus.

She closed her eyes to shut the list out. “That this is the life you want. I know you see your apprenticeship as a debt, but I don’t want you to think of becoming a Knight as something you have to do because there aren’t any other options. You can still leave, if you want to have a life of your own. After your braid is cut, it gets harder.”

“Don’t worry,” said Ferus on the other end of the comm. He sent a pulse of reassurance through their mental connection. “You did a good job with my training. I’m not going to go run off with some Senator and make you clean up after me, I promise.”

“I won’t worry,” said Siri. “But do me a favor and think about it, these next few months. The Order—they don’t always do a good job of showing you exactly what it is you’re giving up, and I don’t want it to catch you by surprise one day. Alright?”

“Alright,” said Ferus. “I’ll try to do that.” He paused for a moment. “There are only two possibilities, Master. Either it was never charted, or someone erased it.”

“What?”

“The logic problem,” said Ferus, as if that should have been obvious. “Either way, you can find it by pulling up the gravitational field charts and auto-fading the ones that cancel out correctly with existing orbital patterns.”

“I see,” Siri said distractedly, setting the ship’s computer to work on the algorithm. 

“Did I get it right?” said Ferus.

“Yes,” Siri replied, trying to sound like a wise, serene Jedi Knight who wasn’t using her Padawan to solve practical questions she was too tipsy and miserable to handle. “That’s exactly how I found Knight Kenobi’s missing planet.”

“Missing planet?” said Ferus. “I thought we were tracking down Padawan Skywalker first.”

_Blast._ They had decided that, hadn’t they? And now she had to get them to Kamino in time to catch Jango Fett before he died. That would mean convincing Obi-Wan to prioritize a side mission over the well-being of his missing, injured Padawan, without even being able to explain why. She’d probably have better luck politely asking Palpatine to give up on galactic domination and take up moisture farming.

Siri shoved the brandy back into its drawer as the computer beeped a match. True to Ferus’s prediction, there was a suspiciously planet-shaped hole in a little-trafficked corner of the holomap. She quickly memorized the coordinates and ducked out of the cabin.

Obi-Wan was deep in meditation on a couch in the ship’s common area, breathing deeply and evenly and radiating serenity. She slid into a chair across from him and tapped his knee, opening her mind a little so he wouldn’t perceive the gesture as a form of attack. “Have a minute?”

His eyes blinked open. “For you? Always.”

“Any luck finding Anakin?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I don’t understand it. I can tell he’s in pain, but it’s like something’s blocking me from communicating with him or figuring out where he is. It doesn’t feel like his normal shields either—I can generally get at least part of the way through those.”

“I’m sorry,” said Siri. She took a deep breath. “Obi-Wan, do you think you’re going to find him?”

“Yes,” said Obi-Wan firmly. “I have to. Something’s gone wrong, Siri. I can sense it. Even Yoda feels something, and he’s halfway across the galaxy.”

“What did Yoda say?”

“Shrouded in darkness, young Skywalker is,” Obi-Wan quoted bitterly. “Find him, you must, before he is overpowered.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Siri said. “But if we don’t have a reliable way to find him, we’re no use to him, Obi-Wan. You know that.”

He set his lips in a thin, stubborn line. “Do we have another option?”

“Yes,” she said. “I called in a favor with Quin and had him look into the Kamino thing in his free time.” It was a lie, but a necessary and plausible one, and Quin wouldn’t contradict her. “I’ve got coordinates for the planet. It’s a mess, and it’s not the type of mess Quin is trained to handle, let alone me. He’s too shady, I’m too brute force. That’s where you come in.”

“How big of a mess could it possibly be?” Obi-Wan asked. 

“The sort of mess that could get most of the Jedi in the Order killed down the line if it isn’t resolved in the next couple of days,” Siri replied, and that at least wasn’t another lie. 

“You’re exaggerating,” said Obi-Wan flatly.

“Try me,” said Siri, staring him down. “I don’t exaggerate about this sort of thing. You should know that by now.”

“Take your own advice and comm the Council,” Obi-Wan said. “They can send someone in to cover it.”

“That takes time that we don’t have,” Siri argued. “And it’s your mission, actually. Locate the Senator’s assassins—the ones using Kaminoan sabredarts to take out bounty hunters.”

“My original mission,” Obi-Wan said stiffly, “was first and foremost to protect the Senator. That means finding—” He broke off suddenly, his eyes lighting up with a sudden inspiration. “One moment, Siri,” he muttered, and slipped back into meditation before she could reply. 

She used the time to collect her thoughts enough to make a good stab at a convincing argument. It was probably going to be a wasted effort, since all the facts on her side were from the future, and therefore not useful in a debate.

Obi-Wan’s eyes blinked open. “They’re en route to Naboo.”

“How did you find them?”

Obi-Wan had the decency not to look too self-satisfied. Either that, or he was too worried about Anakin to be as smug as usual. “Senator Naberrie is Force-sensitive. Not enough to have been picked up on Search, but enough that, given my familiarity with her, I could find her and see Anakin through her eyes for a moment. He’s alright.”

“Thank the Force,” said Siri, and almost meant it. It was probably some sort of violation of the Code to hold Anakin’s current self accountable for his actions in the future. But as far as she knew, the Order’s founders hadn’t had to read all about how one of their best friends was murdered by his own Padawan, so they didn’t exactly have the right to dictate her reactions in this situation. “If he’s alright, then Kamino’s a higher priority. You know I’m right.”

“You’re quite right,” said Obi-Wan, and his face relaxed into the placid, confident expression that meant _danger._ “We should go to Kamino.”

“Really.” She let suspicion creep into the edge of her voice. “You actually agree that we should go to Kamino?”

“Yes,” he said, ignoring her tone. “But we can’t abandon our mandate to protect the Senator, of course.” 

Somehow, Siri sensed that she wouldn’t like where this was going. “We don’t have a choice, Obi-Wan. You know that. Anakin is capable of protecting her until we get back.”

“As you said yourself,” Obi-Wan countered smoothly, “Anakin has never been known to behave responsibly when left to his own devices.”

“I’m not minding your Padawan for you,” Siri protested.

“I’m not suggesting that,” Obi-Wan said mildly, and she realized what his play was going to be. In that moment, she could have punched him.

“Ferus is not your Padawan to command,” she stalled, the words _killed in combat with Anakin Skywalker_ flashing before her eyes. “You can’t just send him out alone.”

“He’s due to be Knighted soon,” said Obi-Wan. “I can’t think of a better first solo mission. He’ll be alongside people he’s worked with before, with a clear objective. What drawback could there possibly be?”

Siri’s mind raced, looking for an out that didn’t involve future knowledge. “Anakin won’t listen to Ferus, Obi-Wan. They already don’t get along as it is. This will only make things worse.”

“They’ll be Knights together soon enough,” Obi-Wan pointed out. “A joint Masterless mission will be a good chance for them to work out their disagreements and practice an effective professional relationship.”

“We only have one ship,” she protested.

“So we’ll take him to a dead drop point,” said Obi-Wan matter-of-factly. “Honestly, Siri, it’s a solo mission, not a ritual sacrifice. What’s the real reason you don’t want to send him?”

“There isn’t a real reason,” Siri said. “Maybe I just think he’ll learn more by coming with us to Kamino.”

Obi-Wan’s face softened. “Siri, it’s natural to have a hard time letting your Padawan go. Force knows, I’m already dreading the day Anakin faces the Trials. But you owe it to Ferus to let him stand on his own two feet as a Knight, and then you’ll take another Padawan and train them just as well as you did him.”

“I know all that,” Siri snapped. “I’m perfectly capable of letting Ferus go when the time comes. I just don’t think this is the right time.”

“Well, someone has to go find Anakin and protect the Senator, at any rate,” Obi-Wan argued. “So, should it be me, you, or Ferus?”

She couldn’t let Obi-Wan go, in case Rey was telling the truth and this was the only good way to prevent an army from falling into Palpatine’s hands. Siri couldn’t go herself, because she needed to be on Kamino to make sure that Obi-Wan didn’t inadvertently torpedo Kylo and Rey’s plan. Besides, she didn’t trust herself to maintain serenity and wisdom around Anakin Kriffing Skywalker.

That only left one option. “Ferus,” she said, biting the word out. “And you should hope he makes it back alright, or I’ll have _words_ for Anakin.”

* * *

The ship was safely in hyperspace, their passengers were safely in the cabins, Anakin was safely in the cockpit, away from their passengers, and for the first time since Cordé’s shuttle had exploded, Padmé let herself relax a bit.

“We’ll make planetfall in twelve hours or so, Senator,” Anakin announced from the pilot’s seat as she ducked into the cockpit. “You should get comfortable. I’ve got her steady for now.”

“Oh, sorry, am I intruding?” she asked, backing out.

“No!” Anakin stammered. “I mean, I just thought you might want to sleep or something. I’ve got it handled up here. It’s mostly autopilot.”

She shrugged and flopped into the copilot seat. “Your mom needs the bed space more, and I’ve slept in worse places. Do you mind?”

“Mind?” Anakin repeated, somewhat dazed. “What? No, I don’t. Do you want my cloak or something? It’s a good blanket in a pinch.”

“I’m good, thanks,” she said, trying to decide whether she could take her hair out in front of Anakin. It was a major etiquette violation, of course, but her scalp ached from spending nearly fifteen hours in a hairstyle meant for a three-hour Senate session. Besides, he probably wouldn’t notice or care. Female Jedi wore their hair down as often as not, in front of all sorts of people. She came to a decision, plucked a handful of pins out of her hair, and dumped them in a pile on the dash. “What about you? Are Jedi allowed to sleep on the job?”

“I shouldn’t,” Anakin said firmly, then ruined the effect by yawning. “I’m supposed to be protecting you, Senator.”

She was tempted to order him to get some kriffing rest, so that he didn’t fall asleep on top of the next bounty hunter that tried to come after them. But so far, whenever she questioned his decisions, he turned stubborn and defensive. She opted for a subtler line of attack. “That’s too bad. Not many Senators can say they’ve had a slumber party with a Jedi.”

Anakin squinted. It wrinkled his nose up, which was oddly endearing. “Slumber party?”

She really had to do a better job of being sensitive to the differences between Anakin’s life experiences and hers. “Figure of speech—it’s this thing children in Core Worlds do sometimes. They all meet up at someone’s house in the evening to hang out, and they stay up late eating snacks and playing games, and then they all fall asleep on the floor. Do the Jedi do anything like that?”

He shrugged awkwardly. “Maybe Initiates do that? I was Master Kenobi’s Padawan as soon as I joined the Order.”

“That settles it,” she said decisively. “We’ll have to try it.”

“Have you had one before?”

She snorted. “Anakin, I governed a city when I was twelve. There were days when I would have killed to get to have a slumber party.”

“Well, here we are now,” said Anakin, grinning roguishly. “No murder required. What’s the first step?”

“We don’t have any good snacks,” she said, “so we’ll have to make do with getting comfortable and playing games.”

Anakin took off his cloak and spread it on the ground before she could ask him to. “We don’t have cards,” he said, “or I’d be more than happy to clean you out at sabacc. I learned from the best.”

“Master Kenobi plays?” she asked, trying to reconcile the image of the grave, professional Knight playing card games.

“Never met a better bluffer,” Anakin said fondly, flopping gracelessly onto the cloak. “He swears it’s to teach me to conceal my thoughts in the Force, but I think he just doesn’t want to admit he likes playing.” 

She laughed as she joined him on the floor, lying down so they faced each other. He was warm and solid, his face barely a foot from hers. “I won’t tell him you said so.”

“Please don’t,” Anakin snorted, “he’d never trust me again.” His face turned solemn for a long moment, and Padmé knew that he was thinking about whether Master Kenobi would trust him again, now that Anakin had run away from his duties to the Order without an explanation. 

“What other games do Jedi know?” she asked, to distract him. 

He smiled, but it looked forced. “Well, Aayla taught some of the junior Padawan a game where people dare each other to do things to play in study hall whenever Master Nu left, but Master Yoda found out about it, so we stopped playing.”

“Was he mad?” she asked. 

“No,” said Anakin. “He walked in, and Darra was doing an imitation of him, but squawking like a chicken between every word and doing a handstand on top of the study table. He critiqued her handstand posture, and left without mentioning the rest.”

Padmé laughed harder than she had in years. When she could talk again, she said, “My handmaidens and I would do something similar, only we could choose to answer questions about ourselves if we’d rather not do a dare.”

“Questions?” said Anakin skeptically. “That sounds like an easy out.”

She grinned. “You’ve never seen Eirtaé play, then. She reduces people to tears.”

“Okay,” said Anakin. “Ask me a question.”

“You have to tell the truth,” she warned him. She decided on an easy one, to start. “If you could be anything in the galaxy, except a Jedi, what would you be?”

“A pirate,” said Anakin immediately. “I’ve wanted to be one ever since I was a kid, actually. But a good pirate.”

“A good pirate?” Padmé repeated. “How would that even work?”

Anakin grinned. “I’d tell you, but you only get one question, Senator. Your turn.”

“Truth,” she decided. 

He thought for a moment. “Who was the first person you wanted to kiss?” he asked, a little too casually. “As an adult, obviously, not like on the cheek or something.”

_Oh, kriff._ She willed her cheeks not to flush. The story about Palo wouldn’t count, since she’d been twelve and too sheltered to consider the possibility of kissing his lips. “This is really embarrassing,” she said.

“Well, now I have to know,” Anakin said. She was sure she wasn’t imagining the way his eyes were dipping down to her lips.

“You have to understand, I was under a lot of stress at the time,” Padmé hedged. 

“You’re not getting out of this,” Anakin said mock-menacingly. 

She gave up. “It was Obi-Wan,” she admitted.

For a second, Anakin looked stunned. Then, he burst into raucous laughter. “When was this?” he managed to ask between snorts.

“During the Invasion,” she admitted, feeling her cheeks burning wildly. “I was young, and he seemed only a little older than me, risking his life to help me take back my planet. It seemed like something out of an old poem.”

Anakin laughed. “Especially the Padawan haircut, I’m sure.”

She reached out and tugged his braid. “Are you really in a position to mock Padawan hairstyles right now?”

“And after it was over,” Anakin continued loudly, swatting her hand away, “he would have been all closed off and hiding his emotional vulnerability, which made you want to protect him and his fragile, delicate heart. He even had a cute, endearing kid he didn’t know what to do with—that’s me, by the way. Honestly, no wonder you fell for him, Padmé.”

“Stop that,” she protested half-heartedly. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” said Anakin. “I don’t have anything as embarrassing as _that_ to worry about.”

“We’ll see,” she said, and tried to think of something deeply embarrassing to ask. “Have you ever had feelings for another Jedi, and who was it?” 

Anakin flushed. “You’re evil.”

“I’m very, very evil,” she said sweetly. “Now tell me _all_ about it.”

He turned over and buried his face in the fabric of the cloak. “Master Kenobi,” he muttered.

Padmé cackled gleefully. “I thought you didn’t have anything to be embarrassed about!”

“So did I!” said Anakin. “I wasn’t thinking about that!”

She decided to put him out of his misery. “Dare.”

“Oh, thank the Force,” said Anakin. “I needed a break from thinking of embarrassing questions.”

“Already?” she said innocently. “You only asked one.”

He glared at her. “Don’t push me while I’m coming up with your dare. Now how about you fly the ship?”

“I don’t have a pilot’s license,” she said immediately. She’d desperately wanted to learn to fly, growing up, but by the time she was old enough to try for a license, she was spending ten hours a day in the Legislative Youth Program.

He scoffed. “It’s like flying a speeder, but with more dimensions and a few extra button. You ruled an entire planet, and you’re not sure you can pilot a ship?”

“Fine,” Padmé groaned, sitting up. “I was just getting comfortable down here, too.”

“I’ll bring her back to realspace for a few minutes,” said Anakin, leaping to his feet. She watched him mess with the dials and levers for a few moments. Even with his right hand injured, he was nimble and confident behind the controls. “She’s all yours,” he announced, as the stars flickered into view around them.

“Okay,” she said, and sat down warily in the cockpit. “This one goes forward?”

“That one changes tilt, which changes your altitude,” he corrected. “ _That_ one changes thruster amplitude, which makes us go forward faster or slower. We’re already going forward. That one over there changes our heading, so please don’t touch it for now, or I’ll have to run all my calculations again.”

Padmé nudged it experimentally, feeling a tiny, secret thrill. “Like this?” She could feel the ship’s engines roaring to life.

“Yes, but that much thrust makes people who don’t like flying nervous,” Anakin said. “Remember, we’re in space, so there’s no air friction. Continuous thrust means continuous acceleration, which means we crash if we don’t explode first.”

“Got it.” She released the thruster lever back to neutral and reached for the lift lever on a whim. “Is this safe for me to try?”

“Go ahead,” said Anakin. “You’re the pilot.”

Padmé hesitated. “Do you want to put on a seatbelt first?”

“I won’t let you crash us,” he said confidently. 

The lever was much heavier than the thruster. “I think it’s stuck,” she said, pulling with both hands.

“Let me feel,” said Anakin. He leaned over the back of the chair and put his arms around the sides, resting his hands on top of hers as he maneuvered the lever minutely. “Yep, they can get jammed a little right when they get out of hyperspace. Stop pulling for a bit, and then when I say, try pulling again.” She could feel his soft, even breathing against the back of her neck. “Pull now.” 

Padmé pulled, and Anakin pulled with her, and the lever resisted for a few seconds, then shot downwards all at once. The ship’s gravitational field sensor flared a bright red, and the stars spun dizzyingly outside the window. 

“Let go!” Anakin yelled, laughing wildly. “Seriously, loops are for advanced students, Padmé!”

She released the lever, and the ship righted itself. “That was fun,” she said, although the word didn’t begin to encapsulate the manic, giddy freedom of having the stars at her fingertips. “Take her back to hyperspeed?”

“Good job,” said Anakin, grinning exuberantly as he took the pilot’s seat. “You really should learn. You’d be good at it. I can teach you in my off-hours once we go back to Coruscant, if you want.”

“Only if you let me pay you,” she said. “I can’t let you waste your off-hours on me.”

“Wouldn’t be a waste,” said Anakin, softly, and she definitely wasn’t imagining the way he was looking at her lips. He noticed her looking, flushed deeply, and turned away to make an adjustment to the ship’s computer.

“Do you want to keep playing?” Padmé asked. She had been tired before, but she didn’t think she could fall asleep now. 

“Sure,” said Anakin, standing up from the pilot’s seat as he flipped the hyperspeed lever. The stars blurred in the viewport. 

“Truth or dare?”

He deliberated. “Truth. I’m a little scared of letting you dare me, honestly.”

“Truth it is, then.” Padmé felt dangerous just then, alive in all the best possible ways. She walked up closer to Anakin, until she could look right into his eyes if she tilted her head up a bit. “Do you want to kiss me?” she asked, low and quiet.

She watched him swallow once. 

“Yes,” he said hoarsely, staring at her as if he could drink her in with his gaze. She waited, but he didn’t move. 

“I want a dare,” she said, reaching out to grab the fingers of his good hand. “And I think you know what it should be,” she added.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “Are you?”

“I dare you to kiss me,” Anakin whispered, and the words were a warm invitation and a defiant challenge, all at once. Padmé barely let him get the words out before she surged up on her tiptoes and kissed him fiercely.

Somehow, they ended up in the pilot’s chair with Padmé perched on Anakin’s lap and his good hand tangling in the loose waves of her hair. She felt hazy and warm, though she wasn’t sure whether that was from all the kissing or the ensuing lack of oxygen. 

The ship’s holocomm beeped loudly, and Padmé jolted out of her reverie. “Ignore it,” Anakin muttered against her mouth. “Whoever they are, they can kriffing wait.”

The comm beeped more insistently, and Anakin cursed and reached behind her to hit the silencer. His eyes widened. “Who is it?” she asked, scrambling off his lap.

“The Chancellor,” he said. “We have to take it.”

_Oh, blast._ “Help me with my hair,” Padmé said, already jamming pins in haphazardly. 

“What?” said Anakin. 

“The Chancellor’s from Naboo,” she hissed. “Unmarried women putting their hair loose in front of people who aren’t in their family is a huge cultural taboo there, now come and help me get it the _kriff_ up!”

Between the two of them, they managed something that would probably pass as a bun, if she didn’t turn her head away from the camera. 

“Senator!” said Chancellor Palpatine, flickering into life on the holoreciever. “I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you alive and well. I’m so relieved that I was able to reach you.”

“Thank you, Chancellor,” she said evenly, praying to Shiraya that he wouldn’t notice how red her face was. “I’m sorry for my earlier deception.”

“Never mind about that,” he said kindly. “Though, might I ask—where were you actually?”

“Padawan Skywalker had a lead on the Sith,” she explained. “I went to Tatooine with him to help draw them out.”

Palpatine looked confused. “Sith? I wasn’t informed of any Sith.”

“What?” Anakin broke in hotly. “I told the Council right away. Surely they briefed you?”

The Chancellor sighed. “My dear boy, the Jedi Order often have more pressing business than keeping an old man like me up to date.”

“But that’s—”

“Out of our hands, and quite understandable,” Palpatine concluded smoothly. Then his eyes lit up. “But if you have any time, my boy, I would like to hear about the Sith you saw.” He broke off and addressed her. “You might not know this, Senator, but old tales have always been a personal hobby of mine, and Padawan Skywalker is good enough to indulge me with insight into the Order’s myths now and then.”

“I didn’t just see him,” said Anakin. “I fought him.”

The Chancellor looked appalled. “Are you alright?”

“Minus a few fingers,” said Anakin dismissively, saving his bandages in front of the camera. “He was tall, human or near-human, with dark hair and a red lightsaber with a crossguard. He called himself Kylo Ren, and he’s traveling with a female Light Side user named Rey. Have you read anything that might be relevant?”

“No,” said Palpatine. He seemed genuinely taken aback. “Did you speak with him?”

“Yes,” said Anakin. “Chancellor, do you remember what I told you about? With my mother?”

Palpatine’s gaze was faraway. “Of course,” he said, gently. “How would I have forgotten?”

“They were there, in my dream,” said Anakin. “That was the lead that the Senator mentioned. I knew where they were going to be next.”

The Chancellor leaned forward. “Anakin,” he said, slowly and carefully, “what happened to your mother?”

“She’s alright,” said Anakin. “She’s on the ship with us now. There was a minor scuffle involving the Senator, which is how I ended up dueling him. That’s when we spoke.” He broke off.

“You seem perturbed,” said Palpatine. “Is something the matter?”

“No,” said Anakin quickly. 

“Have you spoken with your Master recently?” 

“Is he angry?”

The Chancellor waved his hand. “Nothing you can’t fix, I’m sure. But you should really talk to him about whatever’s troubling you, Anakin.”

“I can’t,” said Anakin. 

“I see,” said Palpatine thoughtfully. “It’s something that concerns him, then?”

“Yes,” said Anakin. “Chancellor, I think there’s a mole in the Jedi,” he blurted.

“What?” said Palpatine quietly. “My dear boy, are you sure?”

Anakin nodded resolutely. “Kylo Ren knew about my prophecy. That’s something only a Jedi could know. Therefore, a Jedi told him, which means someone in the Order is a traitor.”

The Chancellor looked horrified. “Someone has to launch an investigation!”

“Nobody can,” said Anakin. “For all we know, the mole is in the Council. And we don’t know who it is.”

“Which means you can’t trust anyone,” Palpatine concluded sadly. “Anakin, I’m honored that you chose to tell me. I’m no Jedi, nor do I pretend to be as wise as one, but I hope you know that you are always welcome to come to me for counsel, whatever that may be worth.”

“It’s worth a great deal,” said Anakin. “Thank you, Chancellor.”

“You’re more than welcome,” said Palpatine warmly. “And I’ll be sure to do some research over the next few days. We’ll see if we can’t find out more about this Kylo Ren.” He seemed lost in thought for a moment, no doubt planning which texts to try first. “But look at me, taking up all your time, and both of us ignoring the poor Senator!” he exclaimed suddenly. “I’m so sorry, Padmé. I get carried away when my favorite topics come up, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t worry, Chancellor,” she said. “I’m glad to know that Padawan Skywalker has friends on Coruscant.”

“He only tolerates my company because I can update him on your latest exploits,” Palpatine confided conspiratorially. “We’re both quite in admiration of you.”

“That’s very kind,” said Padmé.

“The Chancellor’s exaggerating,” Anakin protested. “I asked how you were a few times, that’s all. Nothing out of line.” The way he looked at her as he spoke was _definitely_ out of line, however. Padmé fiercely hoped she wasn’t blushing. 

“How could it be out of line?” said Palpatine. “The two of you are friends! If the Order has a law against friendship, they should convict half their Masters at once.” He shook his head. “But then, I wouldn’t have made a very good Jedi, I suppose. Far be it from me to advise the Order on anything.”

“You should have been a Jedi,” said Anakin fiercely. “You know every bit as much about the Force as any of them.”

“I just don’t sense it, which is a slight prerequisite, I’m afraid,” Palpatine joked. “Anyway, as much as I enjoy checking in on you bright young people, I have an actual reason for calling.”

“What can I do for you, Chancellor?” said Padmé immediately. If someone as powerful as Palpatine needed a favor from a junior Senator, she couldn’t afford to refuse him. With his support, she could actually take down the Military Creation Act.

“Are you familiar with a planet called Geonosis?” Palpatine said.

She thought back to her old flashpad sessions, from the time when she’d honestly believed that all it took to be a good politician was knowing every charted planet’s location, terrain type, primary species, and exports. “It’s a rock planet in the Tatoo sector, home to the Geonosians. Some sort of manufacturing export, I think?”

“You have a good memory,” the Chancellor said. “And yes, they are manufacturers. They primarily specialize in droids—not anything as advanced as astromechs, mostly hazardous-service droids and the like.”

“What’s happened to them, Chancellor?” said Anakin.

“Nothing, as far as I can tell,” said Palpatine. “But they haven’t sent a trade shipment in two months now. If this continues much longer, several key industries could face critical shortages. I’ve attempted to comm the queen of the planetary hive, but she’s refusing all contact.”

“How can we be of service?” said Padmé. “I think we might already be out of the sector.”

“Oh,” said the Chancellor. “In that case, maybe it’s best to leave the situation alone. I was speculating that if a Republic Senator were to touch down briefly, say to refuel, the planet would be bound by intergalactic treaty to offer hospitality to her—and, crucially, to her Jedi bodyguard.”

“I see,” said Padmé. “Chancellor, I would be honored to assist you, but I need to make a quick stop on Naboo first to fill out some paperwork I’ve been putting off for the better part of a term. I promised Queen Jamillia that I really would get to it this time, and after having been in her position myself, I certainly don’t want to create any further stress for her!” She laughed nervously. “Is a delay of a few days alright?” 

“You don’t have to lie for me, Padmé,” said Anakin with quiet confidence beside her. “Chancellor, my mother and her family are on the ship, and Padmé is arranging for them to stay on Naboo until we know the Sith won’t try to use them to get to me. We need the delay to get them settled.”

“Take all the time you need,” said Palpatine. “If I were you, I would want to keep my loved ones close as well. Please give your mother my comm frequency, Anakin. I grew up on Naboo, and having someone of an older generation to talk to might ease her transition.”

“I couldn’t,” said Anakin firmly. “That would be incredibly presumptuous. You’re the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. I’m pretty sure that talking to you would completely overwhelm my mother. She wouldn’t know what to say to someone so important!”

Palpatine laughed. “I’m really just another person, Anakin. I just happen to be wearing a robe of state at the moment.”

“I’ll tell my mother you offered,” said Anakin, “but I don’t think she’ll believe that I’m telling the truth.”

“We’ll talk about it after you return from Geonosis,” Palpatine conceded. “Safe travels, both of you.”

“Thank you,” said Padmé. “We’ll report to you as soon as we know anything.”

“Thank you, Padmé,” said Palpatine. “By the way, would you mind keeping knowledge of this errand fairly limited for now? If the merchants find out that a shortage is coming, they’ll drive up prices across the board, and we’ll have a full-scale economic panic on our hands before long.”

“You don’t have to worry about us,” said Anakin fiercely. “We won’t tell a soul where we’re headed or what we’re doing, I swear.”

”Good lad,” said Palpatine, smiling slowly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that, ladies and gents, was the sound of the intergalactic shit hitting the ship’s propulsion fan. Anakin, you naïve dumbass.  
> Side notes: Aayla becoming a minor deity is a random detail from her legends wookieepedia page that I loved! It’s nice to imagine that some people actually appreciated the shit the Jedi put themselves through in the name of galactic peace.
> 
> Anyway, stay safe, keep an Adam-Driver-length apart, and I hope you’re all mostly ok in these crazy times!! <3<3
> 
> -Liv

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Hope you liked this! I am an obsessive comment-hog so I pretty much ALWAYS want to hear what you think! Also if I got canon wrong please let me know! I’ll try to get updates in mostly weekly. Don’t be a stranger!
> 
> —Liv


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